


in my heart there was a kind of fighting

by iron_spider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Not Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Compliant, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Peter Parker Whump, Peter Parker is a Mess, Poor Peter Parker, Post-Avengers: Endgame (Movie), Pre-Spider-Man: Far From Home (Movie), Tony Stark Has A Heart, Tony Stark Needs a Hug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 23:21:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 31,158
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28255323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: Tony sits back, and his attention is back on Peter now, and he’s giving him that same look he’s been sending his way for days. “Did you sleep in class? In History? Because May and I can teach you history just fine. We’ve got books. And brains. And memories.”Peter snorts, and feels a little sad at the same time. “Nah,” he says, scooting down in his seat. “I didn’t sleep.”Tony hums and Peter can hear the anxiety in it, no matter how he tries to mask it.“It’s fine,” Peter says again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. That’s gonna be a new mantra, apparently, because he keeps saying it without even meaning to. Tony gives him a long look, and finally starts driving out of there. Peter stares at him, and every blink is like the flick of a flame against his skin. Why does not sleepinghurt?He should just pass out, at this rate. That’s how these things should work.
Relationships: May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Peter Parker & May Parker (Spider-Man), Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 45
Kudos: 453
Collections: Irondad Fic Exchange 2020





	in my heart there was a kind of fighting

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hollow_dweller](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hollow_dweller/gifts).



> happy holidays, hollow_dweller! this has been such a beast for a couple months now, and I truly hope it lives up to expectations and that you love it (all 31k of it, lmfao). all my love!!! 
> 
> and this is added to my list of fics with a shakespeare title, because it was never meant to be this GIGANTIC but here it is, so I think it deserves it!

Peter presses the heels of his hands into his eyes, trying to rub the burn away. The wind rattles in his ears and he can hear Ned shifting closer, his foot kicking at the step below the one they’re sitting on. 

“Still not sleeping?” Ned asks, gently. Ned is always highly aware of Peter’s senses, of being too loud or moving too much, and half the time it makes Peter feel guilty, but all of the time it makes him feel grateful.

But he definitely wishes he’d never mentioned this. To Ned or to anybody else. Because he loves their affection but their worry just morphs into his own worry and then he’s got this giant worry monster hanging on his back. He sees it in their eyes, feels it in their movements, and, like—

He’s totally fine! He’s fine. Completely fine.

“I’m fine,” he says out loud, to make it true, even though that’s never the case and if it was the case, May would have met Tom Selleck by now. 

Ned hums anxiously. “Yeah, okay.”

Peter pulls his hands away from his face and looks at him. “Don’t _yeah okay_ me, Ned, c’mon. Would I lie to you?”

“Yes,” Ned says, without hesitation.

Peter shakes his head at him. “I’m fine. I’m fine! I’m not tired.” He tries to swallow down a yawn. He tries and he tries and he only half-fails, but it doesn’t matter anyways because Ned is always looking at him and analyzing him and he can see things in the smallest of his movements. “I’m fine,” Peter says again.

“Where’s MJ?” Ned asks, and then he’s looking around all dramatic, raising his eyebrows and bugging his eyes out. “Where is she? She’d agree with me.”

“Agree with what?” Peter asks, laughing, leaning back on the step above them. “She had to go home early today to help her sister with recital prep.”

Ned huffs and doesn’t say anything.

The not sleeping thing has been...a Thing for going on two days now. And it isn’t just typical not sleeping, what he considers laying awake and sleeping for an hour and waking up again, maybe catching another hour here and there—no, this is not that. This is No Sleep. This is Sleep Won’t Come. This is closing his eyes and finding no rest, only restlessness, only _awake_ , only the complete inability to doze off or nap or anything like that at all. 

He knows it’s gotta stop soon. Tonight’s the night. It’s Friday, he’s got the weekend ahead of him. He’s gonna hit the pillow and just zonk out and that’ll be that and it’ll all be over. 

And then he won’t have to entertain the thoughts that are littered around at the back of his mind. The ones about Electro and Shocker, how they’ve been teaming up lately and he’s fought them about a hundred times in the last two months and still hasn’t been able to take them down. And how maybe they did this to him, somehow, _some kinda way_ that he hasn’t figured out yet. 

_Did what to you, Peter? Overthinker. Overanalyzer. Worry-wart._

But no. That can’t have happened. It’s just him, it’s just him overloading himself with fighting them and fighting those dickheads on the train and those dudes who keep trying to rob the jewelry stores and chasing that guy who ran for two miles because he was on PCP or whatever, and stopping those women from beating up their friends in the tea shop and he really doesn’t even know how he wound up there to begin with, but they were nice in the end once everything was all said and done. 

He’s dealt with more in the past couple months than he’s had to in his entire Spider-Man career, because the world said that coming back from the dead was just Not Enough, and that’s fine.

This is just. Whatever. Normal human stuff. Nothing more than that. It’s fine.

Everything is fine.

Ned sighs again to get his attention, and Peter’s been trying to tone down the zoning out thing since the Not Sleeping Thing has become a thing, because he knows it’s a clear indicator that he’s Not At All Fine. But he’s slipping and he’s gotta stop that.

“Is the fumigating your apartment really gonna take a whole week?” Ned asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says, watching the road. Cars keep driving over and picking kids up as they stream out of the building, and people are yelling about the weekend. “An entire week. So your little Three Stooges pals are done, Ned, I’m sorry. I’m sorry you didn’t get to say goodbye.”

Ned scoffs. “I’m not friends with your roaches. I was just pointing out that those three were always traveling together.”

Peter scoffs. 

“So Tony time for you and May for a whole week,” Ned says. “I can’t imagine getting my apartment fumigated and getting to stay with _Tony Stark_ while it’s happening.”

Peter smiles. “I stay with him a lot,” he says.

“Yeah, I _know_.”

Peter’s tiredness is like an unwelcome guest behind his eyes, but he knows for a fact that Tony’s stayed up longer than this, because he’s told him. And Peter emulates Tony in all that he does, so maybe it’s just becoming an unconscious thing, at this point. 

And speaking of Tony, he drives up himself right at that moment, in one of his bright red, ostentatious cars that he built almost entirely himself in the garage of the tower. The tower, which he bought back from the Baxter Company as soon as they set the world right again, with plenty of apologies and lots of pitiful glances and withering looks. Which Tony can get away with now, considering he almost died saving everybody’s asses, and Peter was there in intern-mode to watch the whole deal go down, and he feels like their pride in each other bounces back and forth like a too-fast ping pong ball. Always in the air, always surging in the space between them.

Being dead and almost dying can really put everything into perspective, and it sure has for Tony. Peter’s been called big brother to Morgan from the second he got back. Tony is constantly doting on him and prioritizing him and just straight-up shifting into dad-mode whenever they’re together. And Peter loves it, thrives on it, and never gets sick of it. Not even when Tony is helicoptering around in Peter’s ear on missions. 

Tony is well aware of the not-sleeping problem. Texting him all day, chatting with May level of aware, and Peter can see it in his eyes as soon as he rolls the window down. He never thought Tony or May would be rooting for him to fall asleep in class, but that’s just the new world order around here. Everything’s the same and everything’s different all at once.

He gets up, fighting through the wave of dizziness that accompanies standing. He looks down at Ned, who’s squinting against the sun. “They pushed off the Europe trip, right?” he asks, readjusting his bag on his shoulder. “Like for real this time?”

“You were zoning out?”

“Ned.”

Ned sighs. “Yeah, they said the budget wasn’t working and the airlines were all whack because of the snap and the second snap and the blip back—”

“Next year?” Peter asks. 

“Yeah, that’s what they said in the assembly,” Ned says. “I knew you were zoning out.”

Peter kicks him a little bit. “Text me when your mom gets here?”

“Duh,” Ned says. “I’ll tell you what she says about when I can come over.”

“Okay,” Peter says. They grin at each other, square and with extra teeth, and then Peter turns and rushes over to Tony’s car. He gets in quick and shuts the door behind him.

Tony is sitting there, sunglasses, scars and all, and he tips his chin at Peter. “You okay?” he asks. 

“Yep,” Peter says, putting his backpack on the floor and pulling his seatbelt on. 

Tony takes his sunglasses off and hangs them on his shirt collar. He looks at Peter for a second, intently, and then he leans forward and peers out the window. “Nerd need a ride?”

“ _Ned’s_ mom is on her way, so he’s good,” Peter says. 

Tony sits back, and his attention is back on Peter now, and he’s giving him that same look he’s been sending his way for days. “Did you sleep in class? In History? Because May and I can teach you history just fine. We’ve got books. And brains. And memories.”

Peter snorts, and feels a little sad at the same time. “Nah,” he says, scooting down in his seat. “I didn’t sleep.”

Tony hums and Peter can hear the anxiety in it, no matter how he tries to mask it. 

“It’s fine,” Peter says again, chewing on the inside of his cheek. That’s gonna be a new mantra, apparently, because he keeps saying it without even meaning to. Tony gives him a long look, and finally starts driving out of there. Peter stares at him, and every blink is like the flick of a flame against his skin. Why does not sleeping _hurt?_ He should just pass out, at this rate. That’s how these things should work. 

“Gonna try some ambient noises tonight or some shit,” Tony says, and from his expression, he seems in deep thought about how to work through this. “Or like. Warm milk.”

“Like I’m a small delicate baby,” Peter says, closing his eyes.

“You are a small delicate baby,” Tony says. “And you will be swaddled until you start snoring.”

Peter snorts, wishing the rocking of the car would lull him to sleep. “Are you saying Morgan snores?”

“Ah, she knows it, let’s not play around,” Tony laughs. 

~

Peter does not sleep in the car. He doesn’t sleep when he tries to nap. He doesn’t sleep when they’re watching The Mandalorian after the pasta dinner that was specifically planned to make him feel tired. Morgan, on the other hand, conks out against Peter’s side on the third or so episode they’re watching, and Pepper peels her away.

“She’s not doing it to mock you,” Pepper whispers, draping Morgan over her shoulder. 

Peter laughs. “Yeah, I know. She does other things to mock me.”

“I’m sorry,” Pepper whispers, turning and walking down the hallway. 

Peter’s left with May and Tony now, who both hone in on him immediately. It’s only ten pm, and he normally stays up til about midnight, even later sometimes if he’s in the middle of Spidey duties. Which he is considering delving into, now. He’s always on point when he’s out there as Spider-Man, and he thinks it might tire him out to the point of finally falling asleep. But he knows it would be difficult to get away, because he can feel Tony and May’s eyes on him. He can feel them drilling holes into his skull. 

“Listen,” he says, trying not to laugh. “I’m—”

“You’re not fine,” they both say, together, at the exact same time. As if they planned it.

Peter groans, shoving his hands over his face, and he sinks down into the couch cushions. “You two can’t talk. You cannot talk. Tony, you’ve stayed up for a week straight,” Peter says, into his palms. “And May, I’ve heard your college stories. I have _heard_ your college stories.”

“I haven’t heard your college stories,” Tony says. 

“And it’s gonna stay that way,” May says. 

Peter can hear their voices moving, and then suddenly there are hands on him on either side, and he has to reach back and grab his phone off the couch before they lift him away from it. He grabs it and lets them pull him to his feet, and he sighs as another text from MJ comes in.

“It’s not gonna happen,” he says, as they lead him through the living room and into the bedroom hallway. Some of May’s suitcases are still sitting next to her door, as if she didn’t have tons of clothes and toiletries here already, from all the other times they’ve stayed.

“Listen, peanut,” Tony says. “You don’t just stay up forever, eventually you crash and we don’t want you to crash, we want you to have a gentle descent.”

Peter scoffs, looking at him. “Did you just call me peanut?”

“Yes, I did,” Tony says, firmly. 

“You’ll sleep tonight,” May says, as they lead him into the room. “And we’re gonna plug your phone in on the dresser instead of on the bedside so you aren’t tempted.”

“Great,” Peter says. He looks down at it and reads the most recent text before they can snatch the phone from him.

_Okay I’m gonna leave you alone because I want you to sleep tonight so let me know in the morning if you did! And if you did we’ll hang out tomorrow, but if not you’re gonna sleep all day because that’s all i’m gonna allow you to do : )_

He smiles to himself, and feels a warm feeling going through his chest.

“Okay, say goodnight to your girlfriend,” May says, once they’re in his bedroom. She walks over to the bed and starts pulling back the sheets, and Tony is by the door adjusting the room dynamics with Friday.

“Aww, his little girlfriend,” Tony says.

Peter’s heart startles. “Uh—”

“They’re so sweet,” May says.

“I know, I saw ‘em when we were getting yogurt the other day,” Tony says, and he quickly moves out of the room.

“Okay, okay,” Peter says, quickly typing out a response that’s not at all properly thought out, because they’re driving him insane and also he’s really tired, so maybe this will be the night it happens for him. May takes the phone out of his hand, as expected, and he yawns big as soon as he hears the noises Tony’s put on and feels the temperature change. 

It sounds like a crackling fire, gentle wind, and Peter yawns again.

“Alright,” May says, hands on his shoulders as she nudges him over to the bed.

He sits on the edge of it, and May peers down at him.

“I’m fine,” Peter says, feeling her energy.

“Yeah, just fine,” May says, rubbing his shoulders. “Sure.”

He shakes his head at her. “You never think I’m fine,” he says. “You always wanna—”

“Yes, I always wanna,” she says, cutting him off. “That’s my job.”

Tony sweeps back in with a glass of milk, placing it in Peter’s hand.

“Warm milk,” Peter says, as it warms his heart, too, with memories of Ben and being carried around on his shoulders before bedtime. He takes a sip and it runs through him like the fondness he feels for both of them. And Ben too.

“Okay,” Tony says, ruffling his hair. “Night, squirt.”

Peter takes another sip and looks up at them. He really feels like this is it, he’s gonna sleep this time. Thank God.

“Call us if you need anything,” May says, leaning down and kissing his cheek.

Peter slips under the covers and puts his glass on the bedside table. “I’m not _sick_ ,” he says, as gently as possible, twisting onto his side. “And hopefully I just pass out and I’m not calling for anybody.”

“That’s right,” May says, as both she and Tony approach the door. Tony turns off the lights, but they switch to this pastel purple that isn’t complete darkness. It drapes on top of his eyes like gossamer sheets.

“That’s _right_ ,” Tony says, pointing at him. “But we’ll be listening anyway, sleeping beauty.”

“I’m gonna be sleeping ugly,” Peter says, closing his eyes and feeling the weight of his lids.

He hears them both say goodnight and for a moment he’s positive. He’s positive that he’s spiraling into dreamland, that his limbs are going weightless and the white noise is simmering behind his eyes. He’s sure and he’s sure and he’s sure and then he realizes—

And then he realizes he’s still thinking. His mind is still active. His body is done and it’s ready but the sleep is on the other side of something, and he can’t immerse himself in it, it’s just out of reach. The sounds are making him tired and the light is working and the milk is helping but he snaps his eyes open anyway, staring up at the ceiling.

His frustration is building in his chest and he sort of feels like tossing himself around in a tantrum, feels like yelling out for May and Tony to come in here just so he can complain. But he knows that’s pointless and knows it would just keep him awake longer, so he takes a few big gulps of the milk, which is lukewarm now, and lays back down. Gets comfortable. Closes his eyes.

He counts sheep. He watches the clock. He closes his eyes again. He stares over at his phone, plugged in on the dresser, and he feels like grabbing it and scrolling and scrolling and scrolling until his thumb falls off.

He doesn’t, though. He lays there and wallows. What the hell is going on? He’s tired enough to collapse, but sleep just won’t take him. 

Shouldn’t super enhanced people be free of these kind of problems? 

Peter’s mind wanders back to the thought he had before, that he pushed away. No way someone did this to him, right? He’s been over and over all of his fights and interactions directly before this started, and it just doesn’t make sense. Nobody really got one over on him. Not even Shocker and Electro, despite how they keep getting away.

He sits up and sighs again, his exasperation almost as heavy and hurtful as his tiredness. He grabs the glass and drinks the rest of the milk, cold now. 

The clock says four in the morning. 

How the hell? 

He knows he can’t count anything out, but it most likely doesn’t have to do with any of the bad guys he’s dealt with lately—he just can’t see Electro and Shocker figuring out how to make it impossible for him to sleep. They’d just kill him outright. 

That’s semi-comforting. He hates that it’s semi-comforting.

The lights in the hallway are out. Everyone else must be long asleep.

Peter flops back down on his back and feels like crying.

~

He’s soaking in the shower at seven in the morning when he hears a knock on the bathroom door. He grunts in response, can barely hear it over the sound of water hitting ceramic, and whoever it is opens the door a little bit. Peter can tell because he feels his air conditioning flooding in from the bedroom, and he can see their stained glass outline through the sliding glass door.

“I take it, uh—I’m hoping you slept?” Tony’s voice asks.

“Not for a single second,” Peter says, swaying a little. He’s still holding the bar of soap in his hand, and for some reason, he feels like he can smell it better than he usually can. It’s new, honeydew and a bit of actual honeycomb on the edge. He runs his thumbnail over its ridges. “Not a wink,” he says. “Not a nod. I’m dying.”

Maybe he’ll fall asleep in here. The steam rises up around him, and he’s already pruning. 

“Not allowed to die,” Tony says, matter of fact. “I’m, uh. Concerned, though, so we’re gonna look into some more things that can maybe help guide you into some blissful slumber.”

“Any slumber would be blissful right about now,” Peter says, and he starts running the soap over his neck. “A nap. I wanna nap.”

“You should try when you get out of there,” Tony says. “I’m gonna go talk to May. Is Ned coming over still?”

“I think I’m gonna tell him I’m dying, so he’ll stay home because he doesn’t like, like, corpses and stuff.” Peter punches himself in the chin with the soap.

He can hear Tony viscerally react, like he’s seen a roach or something, and then it turns into a laugh that sounds half forced and a little nervous. “Yeah, uh, sure, Pete, that’ll give you more time to try and nap all day. Doctor’s orders.”

“ _You_ are not a doctor,” Peter says.

“Uh, I have a PhD in physics,” Tony says, scoffing. “I never wanted to go with that Doctor Stark shit, but technically, it should be required by everybody that speaks to me. Including you. Including Morgan. I’m just good about it.”

Peter snorts. He thinks he knew that. He must have known that. 

“Don’t drown in there, Webs,” Tony says, briefly knocking on the door before he shuts it again.

~

Peter feels fucking insane. Everything is more concentrated, for some reason. Every text tone. MJ’s barely hidden emotions through the messages. The cadence of May’s voice when she’s looking at him, and the roughness when she’s not. She and Tony are going back and forth sitting in front of his laptop, and they bicker constantly, nonstop. Usually Peter stops himself from laughing at them, because both of them are touchy sometimes, but he can’t keep it in today.

Maybe this is a second wind. Second, third, eighth wind. 

“Are you okay?” Morgan asks him, rushing up and tugging on his hand. 

“Yeah,” he answers, too fast. She’s got purple paint on her hands, and a little bit of silver glitter, too. “What’re you doing, crafts? Arts and crafts?”

“Yeah,” she says, still holding onto his hand and looking at him warily. “I’m painting a crown.”

“Can I help?” Peter asks, kneeling down so they’re face to face. “You’re not done yet right?” He feels like he’s talking too fast. She’s definitely looking at him weird. 

“I’m not done,” she says, swinging his hand back and forth. “You want one too? I’ve got some red paint.”

“Yeah!” he says, definitely too loud, but she’s smiling at him a little bit now, which is better. “Yes, I want a red crown. Let’s do it. Let’s do this.” He stands back up and she leads him into the living room, because—was he fucking standing in the hallway? Just standing there like a weirdo? Was that what he was doing? He can’t remember what he was doing. Bad. Not good.

Tony and May are still in front of the computer, except neither one of them is sitting now, both standing and leaning over it, head to head. Tony seems to sense his presence, and he turns around to look at him and Morgan, which May takes as an opportunity to nudge him out of the way. He stumbles but doesn’t falter or react back at her.

“Kids,” Tony says, looking anxiously at Peter. “Lunch, uh—Pete, what do you want, what’ll make you happy, huh?”

Peter’s brain is reacting to the sleeplessness, is reacting to how strange he feels and how things are off kilter, and all his wants and needs are louder too. As soon as Tony mentions food it’s like something huge kicks down a door in his head, like it’s dragging him into the elevator and downstairs and through the lobby and one block over, still in the shadow of the tower, outside at one of the pink tables beside the buzzy sign that was supposed to be replaced a year ago but added a certain ambiance to the place, anyway. He can smell the ground beef. He can smell the onions. He can feel the bread in his hands—

“Chopped cheese,” he says. 

Tony laughs, and gives him a look. Morgan tugs him down to sit at her little table, and she starts laying out newspaper in front of him. “That place downstairs, right?” Tony asks.

“Yes,” Peter says, half caught up in his sandwich fantasy.

“That I can do,” Tony says. “They already know the damn order, we’ve done it so much—Mo, you want your usual?”

“Gyro gyro,” Morgan says, squirting some red paint onto a paper plate for Peter.

“Miss May?” Tony asks. “You do the—”

“Roast beef sub, number five,” Peter says. A bunch of things he’s memorized flash in his mind’s eye, like papers flipping in a filing cabinet.

“And fries too,” May says, not even glancing away from the computer at anybody else. Peter can hear the computer running. He can hear the hinge on the laptop as she pushes the screen back.

“Alrighty, extra salt,” Tony says, sweeping past her, still looking over at Peter with the kind of worry that pulses in an aura around him. “Lemme go see what Pep wants, if anybody else is around, then I’ll get that delivery boy over here.” He walks into the other hallway, towards Pepper’s office.

“Peter, do you feel bad, today?” Morgan asks, gently, like she’s afraid of asking but can’t stop herself. She physically places the paintbrush in his hand, because apparently she’s been trying to hand it to him and he hasn’t been taking it.

He clears his throat and dips it in the red paint. The crown is in front of him now, too, and he doesn’t remember her putting it there. He hopes he just didn’t see it. It has six sharp points and a little jewel to match each one, jewels that look like Morgan glued them there. Like she’d either planned to have this crown for herself next, or already planned to give it to him. 

“Do I look bad?” he asks, trying to paint as nicely as he can, which takes a lot of his focus. Nearly all of it, like a glass that’s sprung a leak.

“Your eyes are dark,” Morgan says. She leans in closer to him. “Maybe you can use Daddy’s eye cream makeup.”

Peter snorts. “He uses eye cream makeup?”

“Sometimes,” Morgan whispers. “Puts big big globs under his eyes to make the rings go away, he says.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Peter says, painting right over his thumb when he isn’t focusing properly. “You gotta grab that for me.”

She grins at him, but still manages to look worried.

~ 

About half an hour later he’s got red paint everywhere like a feral kindergartener, and Morgan is cleaning up after him as if she’s his road manager and he’s just had a wild party. But the crown is beside him drying, and hers looks better than his, that’s for sure. He can hear the paint hardening. 

Tony walks into the room with a big bag, what Peter assumes is lunch.

“Delivery boy was acting like kind of a freak,” Tony says.

“Judgmental,” May says. Still, ever as always, in front of the computer. She’s got a hundred tabs open and most of them start with _sleep_. Peter doesn’t bother looking too hard when he approaches, because it burns his eyes.

“No, like, I’ve never seen him there before and he was acting all twitchy and nervous and making sure to point out the names on the sandwiches and stuff,” Tony says, sitting the whole thing down on the table. “Maybe they’re harassing the newbies about getting the orders right? I gave him a good tip.”

The smell is like the best thing Peter’s ever smelled and he barrels over to Tony like an angry warthog. “Chopped cheese,” he says out loud, without meaning to, and Tony gives him another weird look and Peter totally gets these weird looks, they’re completely valid, but he doesn’t know how to—stop. 

Just like he doesn’t know how to sleep.

But is that even a problem anymore? He doesn’t feel tired! He just feels crazy. Maybe that’s worse. Maybe. Maybe, uh, maybe—

“Pete,” Tony says. 

Everyone has shifted a little bit once Peter refocuses, and his sandwich is in his hand and Pepper’s in the room now and May is sitting in front of the computer, but looking at him all concerned.

“Oh,” Peter says, and he holds the sandwich against his chest, the warmth seeping into the caverns of his heart. He walks over and sits between May and Morgan.

“You doing okay, sweetheart?” Pepper asks, from across the table.

“He isn’t,” May says, preempting him before he even talks, even though Peter is sure Pepper knows what’s going on because Tony tells Pepper everything. “But we’re gonna try some things tonight. We’re gonna make some active choices.”

Peter quickly unwraps his sandwich and almost takes a bite with some foil still attached to it. “Active choices, huh?”

~

He stands on top of his active choice. Their active choice. His forced choice. 

“I’m not a yoga guy, May,” Peter says, trying not to sound whiny or petulant, but he definitely sounds both of those things. His voice is ten octaves higher inside his head, and he rolls his eyes at himself and flops over when both Tony and May do. He wiggles his arms and they remind him of worms, and the texture of the yoga mat seems tattooed onto the bottom of his feet. 

“Breathing exercises, baby,” May says, stretching her arms upwards, towards the ceiling. 

Tony glances over at her and does the same thing, and Peter can hear all of his joints creaking. “Release tension, all that...crap,” Tony says.

“Not crap,” May says, changing positions again, rolling her neck.

“Research says that yoga can have a, uh, positive effect on sleep parameters such as sleep quality, sleep efficiency and sleep duration,” Tony says, clearing his throat.

Peter glares at him. “You literally just...rattled something off you read online.”

“We’re trying to help you, Peter,” May says, flopping down again, and Peter doesn’t know whether she memorized a routine or something or if she’s just picking random poses. 

“I’m gonna meditate,” Peter says, sitting down and crossing his legs. He puts his hands on his knees and closes his eyes.

He doesn’t know how to meditate. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing anymore. He feels like he’s blipping in and out of consciousness but he doesn’t remember doing it. He doesn’t remember what sleeping ever felt like, and he doesn’t know if he’s sleepy anymore. No, he knows he is, because he hasn’t slept in days now and you can’t really get over that by any method other than sleeping. But he feels wide awake, and he’s having a strange, clear moment knowing that shit isn’t good. 

He sways back and forth on the spot and feels like he can see through his eyelids. Feels like he can hear the two of them whispering, even though they aren’t.

It’s gotta…

It’s _gotta…_

_It has gotta…_

~

He barely remembers leaving the room. He barely remembers demanding to see their dumb list of all the things he’s supposed to try to bring on sleep. He feels like he’s teleporting from lily pad to lily pad, from relaxing music to running on the treadmill to aromatherapy that’s nearly fucking overwhelming to them stripping his bed and rearranging it to maximum comfortability with new sheets and pillows and blankets.

He talks to MJ and Ned on a three way call before bed, a call that he can barely pay attention to, a call that they’re very aware he’s barely paying attention to, and his brain skip hop jumps right over his goodnights with Tony and May to three in the morning and absolutely positively no damn sleep. 

He knows, he knows he’s just been zoning out and wavering in his nothingness and not sleeping, not sleeping at all, and the direness of it is ready to rear up and bite him in the ass and he doesn’t let it, not yet, not yet because he doesn’t think he can take it just yet, thinks that right now it’ll consume him so not yet, not yet, and he sinks into _not yet_ and wades through it as he rips the covers off and gets out of bed. 

His suit is down with all the other suits in Tony’s little storage area next to his workshop, like a take-your-shoes-off-at-the-door type thing, and Peter is tip-toeing out into the hallway 

_when Tony_ fucking shows up out of nowhere, like he came out of the goddamn wall, and he scares the shit out of Peter to the point that Peter takes two steps backwards and nearly topples over himself.

Tony reaches out to grab him, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. 

“I’m good!” Peter stammers. “Fine. On it, we’re—I’m on the right. Track. Totally cool.”

“You were not going out for a swing,” Tony says, still holding onto him and shaking his head. 

“No,” Peter says, shaking his head right back. And then he starts nodding. “Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna because, like. I don’t know, I haven’t been out in a couple days and there are...Tony, there are definitely people, uh. In need, of Spider-Man. Right now. You know? In need of a spider...a spider rescue.”

Tony narrows his eyes, but not in a mean way. “Sam is out there doing sweeps,” he says. “Bucky’s with him, Steve joins sometimes, we’re good. We’re covering you. Spidey is in need of some spidey sleep.”

Peter sighs and leans forward, bracing his forehead on Tony’s shoulder. “My brain.”

“You gotta turn it off,” Tony says, ruffling his hair. “Tune out the noise. You know I’ve been through this, you know my brain is like one of those monkeys banging around with the cymbals.”

Peter snorts, trying not to fucking cry. 

“Like we said earlier, with the list,” Tony says.

“The magic Wikipedia list,” Peter says, squeezing his eyes shut so tight that they burn. 

“It wasn’t—Listen, it was like listify or something like that, it doesn’t matter, the information tracks,” Tony says. “Tune it out. Clear your head. Let go of the day’s stress or whatever the hell.” He takes Peter by the shoulders and pulls him back, looking him in the eye. “No Spidey adventures right now. Until you’ve got at least ten hours of sleep under your belt. And if tonight doesn’t happen, we’ll try some more drastic measures.”

Peter doesn’t even wanna know what that means, but he can imagine. He sighs, and feels the wind on his face from a swing that wasn’t meant to be. “Okay,” he says, nodding at him, smiling when Tony pats him on the shoulder. “Okay, I’m gonna try.”

“I believe in you,” Tony says, pointing at him as he goes.

“Yeah, I know you do,” Peter says. He takes a couple steps towards his room, and then he turns back around, and still sees Tony standing there, watching him. “Have you just been—waiting out here for me?”

“No,” Tony scoffs. “You made plenty of noise when you got up. So I just knew.”

Hm. Peter does not remember doing that.

~

He lays there. And he lays there and he lays there and he’s been in earth shattering fights before, he’s nearly died, he _has_ died, he’s stood toe to toe with aliens and had his DNA altered and had buildings dropped on him and somehow this, _this_ , feels like the worst thing that’s ever happened to him.

Why the fuck is it happening?

Why?

Is it something he did, is it something someone did, is it—

He stares up at the ceiling and feels like his entire body is in a blender. 

~

The next morning, after another night of no sleep, another night of twisting and crying and swearing and hating, the panic in the tower flips like a switch. They’re all racing around—people he hasn’t seen in days, like Steve and Bucky, are here and talking close to Helen and her new fleet of doctors. Like suddenly he’s dying or something. 

He feels like he’s dying or something.

Or something.

Something.

He’s between too much hype and too much hype and then crashing and burning, scooting around like a slug, and then seconds later he’s bouncing off the walls—

He grabs May around the waist, shoots a web and cascades through the main atrium on the science floor—the science floor, is that what Tony calls it?—and she’s yelping and holding onto him and “Peter! Peter!”

“What?” he yells, landing, and then Tony and Pepper are alongside him too. 

“C’mon, honey,” May says, shaking her head at him, scoffing in her shock.

“Why are you even wearing your web shooters, Peter?” Pepper says. 

“Kid, not everybody knows you’re—you know—”

And then next thing he knows he’s in a different place and he’s watching Tony yell into his phone. 

“And you’re supposed to be around, with your magical ass, in your little temple or whatever you’ve got going on over there, and even your buddy Wong doesn’t know where the hell you are, unless he’s lying to me—”

“He didn’t answer?” Peter asks. He’s sitting in one of the plush chairs in Tony’s office, and he one hundred percent doesn’t remember coming in here. Like part of the time he’s running on autopilot.

“Just call me back,” Tony says, fast. He hangs up and looks at Peter, shaking his head. “No,” he says. “The big prick. But it’s fine. Helen’s concocting something, Bruce is helping—”

“What time is it?” Peter asks, blinking. He feels like he’s moving in slow motion. He feels like he’s gigantic, like a monster fallen off a beanstalk with an arrow stuck in his side. All of him is too heavy.

“It’s four,” Tony says, looking at him warily.

“In the afternoon?” Peter asks.

That deepens Tony’s frown. “Yeah, Pete.”

“I’m not focusing,” Peter says, shaking his head. The shake hurts, too. Snow globe. Lava lamp. One of those balls you get in an arcade with the small bear forever trapped in water and left up to the whims of the palm of your hand.

“I know, buddy,” Tony says, walking over and rubbing his back. “We’re gonna make you a good dinner, I’m still trying to see if Strange gets a hold of me, but Helen’s coming up with one of her magic drugs like the one she came up with after you broke—”

Next thing Peter knows he’s in the med bay, and Helen’s sticking a needle in his arm. He doesn’t know what the hell is going on. Is he supposed to be blipping out like this? Is that what this level of exhaustion does? He needs to ask. He knows they’ve discussed this before, in depth, him and Tony, but Peter’s memories are flying around in his head, uncatchable. He’ll dip his finger into one and come up with a few dripping details, but nothing that feels real, nothing that he can actually remember. 

Peter startles when Professor Hulk is suddenly in front of him. Bruce. Professor Bruce—Professor Banner. He’s sitting in the same place, right? Shit. How long has the big green guy been here? Has he spoken to him and forgotten about it?

“Sorry,” Bruce says, gently, gently as he can, as he holds out a brownish looking liquid to Peter. “Drink this, kid, okay?”

“What is it?” Peter asks, already drinking it.

He sees Bruce open his mouth, he sees him speak, and he hears it too, but it all goes in one ear and out the other. He doesn’t register any of it. And worse yet it doesn’t really _bother_ him like it should—there’s a little voice in the back of his head, yelling at him to ask again, trying to kick him back into shape. Trying to present concerns and issues and possible solves.

On the outside, though…

_You’re spider-man you’re spider-man c’mon this shouldn’t get you down like this_

Peter glances up. He’s still sitting there in the med bay. Helen and Bruce are looking at a screen and talking to another nurse Peter doesn’t know. Morgan and Pepper are off in the corner looking at a pop-up book. May is right next to him, rubbing his shoulder, and Tony is walking over to him with that same expression on his face he’s been wearing since he found out about Peter’s little problem, except the furrow of his brow has just gotten more and more severe.

Peter reaches out and grabs Tony’s elbow, tugging him closer. He has to focus all of his might into not grabbing him too hard, which makes him wonder if he’s been going around breaking shit and not realizing it.

“What, bud?” Tony asks, softly, stepping in closer.

“I’m like…” Peter trails off. “I feel like I’m blackout drunk.”

“How would you know what that feels like?” May asks, beside him, before Tony can even say anything. There’s an edge to her voice that Peter totally gets, with her baby talking about being blackout drunk and all.

“I’m going like, in and out,” Peter says, still looking at Tony. “Like I can’t hang on to….the moment. That I’m in. And like one minute I’ll feel like I can lift the Empire State Building off its foundations and the next I won’t even be able to flex my pinky finger.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, with a sigh. He reaches out to squeeze the shoulder May hasn’t already claimed. “That’s what happens when you miss sleep for this long. Or at least a version of it, it’s a little different for everybody, but always shitty.”

“Everyone’s working on it, sweetheart,” May says. 

It’s weird, right? They think it’s weird. It’s not normal. They wouldn’t all be working on it if it was normal. They’re worried and he’s worried and there’s no hiding that anymore. He thought maybe it was normal but they’re seeing him and seeing how he’s acting and they’re freaking out. So it’s bad. He’s in trouble.

_Breathe, breathe._

“You being who you are and how you work always makes things a little harder when it comes to treating you and getting you medicine,” Tony says. “But we’re—”

Peter blinks and then he’s in his bed. Like he floated through the entire rest of the day without realizing it, without tuning in. He tastes the remains of salmon and rice, so he knows he had dinner, and suddenly he realizes his phone is pressed to his ear. 

“You’re doing it again, aren’t you?” MJ’s voice says.

Peter knows every brushstroke of the ceiling now. “I don’t think I’m coming to school tomorrow,” he says. 

“I know,” she says back. “You texted us earlier when Tony and May called in. Probably not until they get this fixed, you said. Which we’re hoping tonight, since they drugged you up.”

“Drugged me up,” Peter laughs. 

“Well, they did,” she says, with a sigh. 

They did?

He stares up at the ceiling. He tries to remember what life was like before this. Right now is one of those moments where he feels like he’s never gonna be able to move properly again or breathe or anything. “I think I’m gonna be like this forever.”

“No you’re not,” she says, stern. “It’s fine, Peter, they’re—it’ll be okay.”

“Forever,” he says again, barely recognizing his own voice. It’s not Thanos that took him out, it’s not Vulture or falling off a building or any of that stuff. It’s sleep. It’s his body refusing to sleep.

_or maybe it’s or maybe it’s_  
_WHAT’S THAT, MAYBE IT’S WHAT_  
_maybe it’s them maybe they_  
_HUH HUH? SPEAK UP, WHO_

He can’t latch onto whatever his brain is trying to say before MJ says something else again. 

“Your Iron Man won’t let that happen,” she says, some lightness in her voice, but concern too. “I’m just gonna keep saying that until you believe me.”

Peter thinks about how different it’s been since she found out he was Spider-Man. How different things have been since they started getting closer, since they’ve been whatever it is they are. Sometimes it feels like she’s always known. She barely even seemed surprised when he told her. But she did seem proud, and that made him blush all over. Sometimes, he and Spider-Man feel so separate that he’s surprised when people attribute Spider-Man’s actions to Peter Parker.

Right now, he feels farther from Spider-Man than he ever has. He’s about to say something to her, something, anything, when next he knows he’s staring at the clock and it’s five in the morning. He feels like he’s looking at himself from the outside, like he sees himself staring and readjusting the pillow behind his head and staring at the clock and letting it burn into his eyes. His eyes burn so bad that even closing them doesn’t help anymore, just brings on the tears that are trying to help but only make him feel stupider and more childish.

He’s lost count of the days and his own age and any memories that might soothe him. He doesn’t know what the hell is happening and the little voice in his head has grown a little body and it’s wearing a little Spider-Man suit and jumping up and down in a dark abyss, shooting webs like streamers trying to get his attention. Peter sees him but he doesn’t see him, sees him but can’t really acknowledge him, and he hears names and accusations but they turn to dust in the air just like he did that one fucking time when he died, and his mind loves bringing that up right now during all this—hey, remember when you died? Remember when you felt your body trying to fight against it because it felt it coming? Remember the look in Tony’s eyes when he couldn’t deny it anymore? Remember when you saw your own body falling to pieces and you knew that was it? That you’d be gone any second any second any second—

He gets out of bed and tries not to trip over his own feet. 

“Friday,” he says, to the room.

“ _Yes, Peter?_ ”

He wipes at his eyes. He feels the exhaustion subsiding again and the hyperactivity surging, and it’s different than yesterday but the same but worse, it’s always worse, every day it gets worse. He rubs and he rubs and he rubs at his eyes. “Is there anybody awake out there waiting for me? Spying on me? Don’t lie. Protect Peter Protocol, don’t lie to me.”

He doesn’t even know what he wants to do, what’s going on in his head. His head is simultaneously ten steps behind him and forty steps ahead of him. It’s like he’s living in six different timelines at once. 

“ _No one is awake but Doctor Banner, Peter, and he’s in the med bay_.”

“Okay, keep him there,” Peter says. He grabs his backpack and starts putting random clothes into it, hoping he’s putting together a whole outfit but not really bothering to check. He doesn’t know what he’s doing. What is he doing?

“ _Peter, if you’re putting yourself in danger, I will be forced to tell Mr. Stark,_ ” Friday says. “ _Your safety is of paramount importance to him_.”

“No danger,” Peter says, slipping into sneakers. “None. Just a swing. Just a little swing.”

~

He does not remember escaping the tower. Is escaping the right word? It’s not. But anyways. Next thing he knows he’s swinging around, _wearing his backpack like an idiot_. He stops another ATM robbery. He refocuses right in the middle of a fight with some guy in an alleyway, and he quickly has to assess the situation—stolen purse, yelling hiding lady, and don’t those two things contradict each other, and as he’s thinking about that he gets punched in the face.

“Aw, c’mon, man,” he says, and he dodges another punch, yanks the purse away from him, and webs the guy to the wall. Peter stands there for a minute, catching his breath. “You don’t need to go around hitting people. Or stealing purses. There’s a life out there for you, I just know it.” He walks over and pats the guy on the head. “The post office is hiring, dude. They always need help. Go interview there and _don’t_ steal people’s mail.”

He vaguely remembers handing the purse back to the lady, remembers her hugging him, then it’s as if he’s watching himself swinging, watching himself do all of it by muscle memory. The little version of himself in his head is just yelling, hollering at him to stop, and is that the remainder of his sanity? Is that all that’s left?

That’s sad. That’s really sad.

Next thing he knows he’s in the outfit he picked out, which somehow managed to be an entire outfit, and he’s not even sure if it’s completely covering the suit. Hopefully it is. 

The sun is shining.

How long has it been?

He’s stumbling into his favorite bodega, which makes the chopped cheese. They’re open, thank God. There are two dudes behind the counter and they both look like they think he’s a goddamn ghost.

“Chopped cheese!” he yells, without intending to, without any pretense or hello’s. He feels like the entire room is trembling, like there’s a storm in here and just in here, but he can smell his favorite sandwich and that’s driving him forward.

The two dudes are both looking at him weird, and they nearly run into each other trying to get to him. One is a little shorter and he leans over the counter. 

“You want a chopped cheese, man?”

“ _Large_ chopped cheese,” Peter says, feeling like he’s slurring. He drums his fingers on the counter. “You know me. You know me, I live in the tower. Well, sometimes. I’m Tony Stark’s son.”

Both of the guys stop in their tracks and it looks like their eyes are bugging out of their heads. “You’re _what now—_ ”

Peter doesn’t know what they say next, or what he says, because it’s literally like someone presses fast forward. He sees some of it, in blinks and flashes, and then the next thing he knows he’s sitting on a bench under the shadow of the tower, eating his sandwich. He’s got it all over his face like someone who’s never eaten before, and he grabs one of the napkins out of his lap and tries to clean himself up.

The tiredness is a twisting, mutating thing. Right now it feels like it has claws in him, like it’s peeling his skin from his body, like it’s prying his muscles apart. He sways there, clutching at the sandwich and the napkin both, and he feels like he’s stuck in a prison of his own making. 

He has to fix this. He has literally got to fix this. It isn’t normal, it isn’t—this can’t be _normal_ , this can’t be something normal people experience, and he hears his own voice in his head, he hears it now, he hears that little guy in there that’s gotta be him, the real him, the not-crazy him, the him that used to know how to sleep, and he’s yelling _this has gotta be them! It’s gotta be! It’s gotta! You’re so close to taking them down, and they did this to you—_

His phone is buzzing. He’s still got the com in his ear, how the hell did he even remember to put that in, he doesn’t know, and it rings and buzzes and he doesn’t say anything because for a minute he forgets how to _say anything_ and he takes a bite of his sandwich instead, the second Karen pushes the call through.

“Peter,” Tony’s voice says. “Jesus Christ. Where are you?”

Peter cracks his jaw and takes another bite. Everything feels almost painful, for a moment. He just wants to sleep. He just—he needs to sleep.

“Downstairs,” Peter says, groaning. “Across the street from the courtyard. The bench dedicated to that couple, that…” He turns and looks at the plaque behind him. “Arbuckles?”

“Are you hurt?” Tony asks. “Are you okay? Karen told on you, bud. She overrode your damn code, finally, thank God—”

Peter has no idea what code he’s talking about. He feels like his head is an entire blank slate. Just a few lightning bolts that disappear as quickly as they appear. 

“I’m eating,” Peter says, like an idiot. 

“I’m coming down right now,” Tony says. “Stay right there.”

Peter takes another bite of his sandwich, and then he tries to take another bite and it’s not there anymore and Tony is in front of him. It feels like everything all around them is covered in glass, glass he can’t break, a world moving on and moving normal and moving along fine all around him, while he sits here fading out of existence. 

Tony breaks through the glass like isn’t even there—

_Because it isn’t, because it isn’t—_

_Tell him, tell him you need help—_

Tony sits next to him, immediately wrapping his arm around Peter’s shoulders, and instead of telling him the worries in his head, the worries that he can nearly latch onto, the words he can almost form, Peter says—

“You need to knock me out.”

Tony scoffs and tugs him against him. “Stop.”

“Like, full on, get in the suit and punch me in the face.”

Tony hasn’t been in the suit for a while. Not retired, but not active, and Peter knows that. Tony grimaces, tries to hide his horror at the question, but Peter sees it anyway. Tries to not see it.

Tony clears his throat. “Kid, let’s go upstairs—”

Peter shakes his head. “Just—it’ll take a couple, maybe more than a couple, but like—” He mimes a few punches out in the air in front of them, and it almost looks like his hand is glitching. He pulls it back and wiggles his fingers to make sure they’re all still there. “Just. Knock me out. Punch me real hard.”

“Stop saying that out here in public or I’m gonna get arrested.”

Peter feels so goddamn desperate, and it’s dragging him down to the ground. “Please,” he says.

And then they’re walking and Tony is leading him into the tower, and they’re in the main atrium and then they’re in the hallway and then they’re alone in the elevator, all within a couple steps. 

“Took us forever to find you, with all the protocols you put in place, dammit, when did you do that shit—you’re lucky you didn’t get hurt, Spider-Manning it up when your brain isn’t lodged in there properly—”

Peter’s eyelids wanna be closed. His brain wants to be _off_. “If you just. Punch me—”

It looks like Tony’s entire aura flares up. The numbers on the elevator flicker out strings of light against the mirrored walls, and Tony turns and takes Peter by the shoulders. “I’m never gonna hit you,” he says. “Never, not ever, never, not once, not a single time. Even if I’m mind controlled and I hit you, I’m gonna go back in time and stop it from happening. You get me?” Tony shakes him a bit, a little bit and with no bad intentions, but it turns the whole world on its head. “Never. Ever. Ever. Don’t ask me that, Pete.”

Peter sighs and stares at him and knows he’d just fall over if Tony wasn’t holding him up. Tony’s face softens, almost like he can hear Peter’s thoughts, and Peter wouldn’t be surprised at this point if he could. He feels like he might have slipped off into another dimension, without even noticing it. Why else would this be happening?

_Because they might have dosed you with something they might have done this on purpose to mess with you tell him tell him Electro and Shocker it’s probably them you know that now it isn’t crazy it’s extremely possible this isn’t natural it isn’t it isn’t—_

Tony touches Peter’s cheek briefly before letting go of his shoulders, pulling him against his side. It’s like he knows how wavery Peter is right now. Why wouldn’t he? Peter is literally actively dying and everybody knows it.

_Don’t say you’re dying, don’t give up—_

“You’re gonna go lay down in the dark,” Tony says. “You’re gonna listen to more ambient noises and try to clear your mind while we do more research and see what we can mix up. May’s up here fluttering around like a caged bird because you freaked her out so bad, and I’m sure she’d be willing to read to you—”

“Read,” Peter says, blinking slow. “Again with treating me like a baby.”

“We’re not,” Tony says. “We’re just trying—”

Then Peter is standing in front of Rhodey in the training room and no one’s around and Peter is _sobbing_. Rhodey looks straight up horrified, and he reaches out and pats Peter awkwardly on the shoulder. 

“Kid, Jesus, I don’t know—”

“Rhodey, I don’t even remember what I just asked you,” Peter sobs, tears streaming down his face, hiccups overtaking him. Each one turns into a spasm, and he shakes his head. He feels like his legs are trembling. 

“Maybe that’s a good thing,” Rhodey says, still patting his arm. 

Then it like a blazing lightbulb goes off. “No, I—I asked you to knock me out, right?”

Rhodey sighs, glancing away from him.

Peter steps closer. “Please, please. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck, I just—I’m losing time, I can barely move, I’m gonna hurt myself, I haven’t slept in almost a week and I feel like I’m dying, Rhodey. Tony won’t do it but I need help, please. Please, this is like torture. Please help me.” He knows it sounds dramatic but it’s like he’s being torn up inside. It’s gone on for too long. It isn’t _normal._

He’s sniffling and sobbing and he knows Rhodey isn’t gonna punch a sniveling teenager, so he’s gotta stop it.

“Please, I’ll be okay if you do this,” Peter says, wiping his eyes with the heels of his hands. They’re burning with rage and exhaustion and despair. “Please, you know I’m, like, strong and stuff, but at least I’ll be unconscious for a couple minutes and it’ll be like, a relief.”

“Jesus Christ,” Rhodey says, glancing around like he’s about to commit a crime. Which maybe, technically, this isn’t a _great_ thing, and Peter knows it, but he’ll take all the blame. Rhodey is already wearing his gauntlets, which is probably why Peter jumped him in the first place. “Kid, I don’t know—”

Peter’s fear marches along his forehead, a hoard of fire ants. “Rhodey, if you don’t punch me in the face, I’m gonna go slam my head against the wall until I pass out, and I know you don’t want that.”

Rhodey looks pissed and lost and shocked all at the same time. Peter hates himself for doing this to him, but he can’t handle it anymore. 

“Christ, kid, Jesus, Tony’s gonna fucking massacre me,” Rhodey says.

“Please,” Peter says, and before he knows it Rhodey is gritting his teeth and Peter takes that as a sign to brace and he does and he’s never been hit with one of Tony’s iron suits before and it’s definitely _not pleasant_ and that’s the last thought in his head before the darkness pushes him backwards—

—and it isn’t a relief, it’s darkness but it isn’t a relief, it’s like a thousand pounds of cement and metal expanding inside his ribcage, it’s like that time he was stuck inside the freezer and Tony had to come pluck him out before he froze to death, it’s like all of his memories pressing on top of each other, making him flat, making him a pancake, and his heart bursts in his chest and he’s not sleeping this isn’t sleeping he feels trapped here, this is some strange physical place where everything is worse, there’s no rest, no relaxing, and if he had a body he’d flail and scream but he’s a blank spot, he’s a spray of blood, he’s dead, did Rhodey kill him, is he dead, did the combo of no sleep and possibly being drugged and being punched by Rhodey knock him directly into another—

“Buddy, bud, bud, open your eyes—”

“Peter, baby—”

Peter gasps and opens his eyes and Tony and May are there, hovering over him. Both of them have hands on him and for a second he feels like he’s floating, in a bad way, like he might float away and explode somewhere in the sky, and he has to concentrate to bring himself back to earth. He closes his eyes tight and feels worse than he did before, because now his eye is throbbing and he can feel the bruise raising and flaring up red. 

“Don’t blame Rhodey,” Peter groans, opening his eyes again. 

“Rhodey is in goddamn time out,” Tony growls. 

“No, no, I begged him,” Peter says, as the two of them push him up, gently, into a sitting position. His shoulders slump and his mistake is a shadow snaking around his neck. “I begged him and I was crying and snotting everywhere—”

“I know how convincing he can be when he gets that way,” May says, and she glances at Tony. “We both know.”

Tony shakes his head. “Still,” he says. 

“Was it what you wanted, Peter, huh?” May asks, and her anger fizzles in her eyes, because she can hardly be angry at him anymore when he’s so pathetic. “Did it feel like sleeping or did it just feel like getting punched in the face and being knocked out?”

“The second one,” Peter says, gritting his teeth. “Worse. Not even—properly unconscious. Dark and bad. Mistake. Regret, that’s it.”

“Yeah, thought so,” May says, with a put-upon sigh. 

“Up, up,” Tony says, and they both get their arms around his middle and haul him to his feet. He just feels like going completely limp and allowing them to drag him back to his bedroom, but he plants both feet on the ground because he’s already being annoying enough. 

Tony looks at him, craning his neck. May does too, on his other side. Peter doesn’t look at either of them, blinking at the world ahead of him. It fades into whiteness, fades into white noise, into a blank slate, as if there’s nothing else but what he can see.

“You’ve had a shit day,” Tony says. “That you gave yourself.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, and that’s it, because he can’t manage more, because he’s a rag doll and he’s nothing and he just wants to collapse.

“Ned and MJ are coming over,” May says, as they start to usher him over to the door. That gives him a little spark of happiness, and he blinks a few more times. “And you three are just gonna stay in your room and enjoy each other’s company. And that’s it.”

“Oh,” Peter says, hardly able to express the excitement that he feels. His excitement is strange, exhibiting its own half-life separate from him, but it’s still excitement, all the same. 

Tony’s rage is still boiling beside him, though, which makes Peter nervous. He doesn’t want him fighting with Rhodey because of him.

“Not Rhodey’s fault,” Peter says, blinking. “Please.”

“Fine,” Tony says, and that’s it.

_Sigh._

“You love him,” Peter says, and tears crop up again, of course. Why wouldn’t they?

“Yeah, I know I do,” Tony says, so at least there’s that.

“You need help getting out of the suit, Mr. Spider-Man?” May asks.

“Uh,” Peter starts.

And the next he knows he’s laying in bed, wearing pajamas, and Ned and MJ are already there.

“Were you just zoning again?” MJ asks, her hand on his arm. It feels like it’s been there a while, leaving a warm imprint. His eyes widen and it hurts and he traces the outline of his room and that hurts and he feels like he’s trapped inside the walls, somehow. Like he’s where he is but he’s also lodged inside the walls, unable to yell or use any of his strength to get himself out. He can hear MJ’s heart beating, Ned’s too, and Ned pats his head like he’s a dog or something. Peter likes it but he’s not gonna say that.

“Peter,” Ned says, softly, and he pats his head again. 

Peter realizes that he’s tearing up and it stings like a new wound, and he covers his face with his hands. He can feel them both moving alongside him, stretching out on either side of him, and MJ places one hand on his forehead and the other on his stomach. Ned pats his hands and then he rubs his shoulders.

“Peter, we’re gonna fix this,” Ned says. 

“It can’t go on forever,” MJ says. “It just can’t. It won’t, we won’t let it—Tony and May definitely won’t let it, like we keep telling you. Okay? May’s gonna punch somebody in the face and it’s not gonna be you, Peter.”

Peter scoffs and it comes out more as a sob and he shakes his head. The Rhodey thing feels like a hundred years ago. Normalcy feels like a hundred years ago. 

“I love you guys,” he says, dizzy. “I love you guys a lot.”

“No deathbed confessions,” MJ says, but her voice wavers. She cards her fingers through his hair and lets out a heavy sigh. 

“We love you,” Ned says. “And we’re gonna keep loving you once you’re back to normal. And forever after that.”

“Yeah,” MJ says, a bit begrudgingly, which is how he knows she means it. “We love your weird little—cute self.”

Peter hears himself yelling inside his head, and for a brief, shining moment, he’s able to translate. He’s able to hear himself, really hear it, and pull the words out into the air and—

“I think it’s Electro and Shocker,” he says, into his hands. “I think that they—must have done this, somehow, I don’t know.” He pulls his hands back and they’re too heavy. His arms feel twisted and broken at the joints, and he looks back and forth between MJ and Ned. “You know how I’ve been going after them? A lot, since—before this crap? And I haven’t been able to stop them yet?”

“But how would they have done something like this?” Ned asks, brows furrowed.

“Wouldn’t they need to inject you with something?” MJ says. “Or make you eat something?”

They’re both sitting up now, and their energy is static electricity above his head. He still lays there. 

“I don’t know,” Peter says, swallowing hard. “But this isn’t normal. I feel like I’ve had that thought in my head for days now but this just—I’m losing time, I can’t—hold onto anything. This is more than being tired, this is—you don’t just, not sleep when you haven’t slept. Not like this, not—I mean, I should have passed out by now. Every time I close my eyes I feel like I’m gonna pass out because I _should be_ but I don’t and—”

“Stop, stop—”

“Relax, Peter, c’mon—”

He realizes he’s breathing hard and his heart is slamming inside his chest and he knows he has to do something, it’s them, he’s gotta remember, he’s gotta—

He blinks and he’s alone again. They’re gone.

What is he like in those moments he doesn’t remember? Is he going through the motions? Is he saying things? Is he making promises to people? To himself? Who is he in those moments—is he still tired? Is he like the version of himself before all this happened? He doesn’t even have to wonder if he’s slept because he knows he hasn’t, because his arms and legs are disconnected from his body, because he’s one of those dolls kids have that they beat up and tear apart and put back together again. He feels like he’s being buried in quicksand, except it’s slow sand, but just as deadly, just as densely packed and forming all around him and pulling him under. But it’s slow because it’s some form of torture, because someone did something to him, because _they—_

And why this? Why not just kill him?

He’s nearly falling out of bed, the early morning time on his bedside clock like a red beacon of death, and he almost trips over his own feet getting to the dresser. 

He stares at himself in the mirror. He’s been eating fine, he knows he has, but somehow he looks gaunt and sunken-in, as if this has taken years off his life. He’s got black circles under his eyes and he looks like one of those _don’t do drugs_ ads they put on display in school, and he wonders how long he can withstand something like this before he fucking dies. Before he just keels over and dies. Because it has to get to that point sometime, doesn’t it? Tony and May love him, they love him, but they can’t cure fucked up enhanced no sleep. None of the Avengers can.

Unless it was poison. Like he’s thinking. Because he is thinking that. His mind is a spider web and the thoughts and memories keep falling through but he _is_ thinking that, and it’s _lightning_ , no not lightning that’s Thor no not lightning it’s _shock_ it’s _electric_ no that’s a song that’s an old song that Tony and May and Pepper were doing a conga line to, no no it’s—

_ELECTRO AND SHOCKER IDIOT IS HAS TO BE THEM IT HAS TO BE_

That’s it, that’s—

Hold onto it, Peter. Hold onto it.

His brain fast forwards and suddenly he’s sneaking out into the hallway, and sneaking because Tony is out there, Tony is literally in a rolling chair sleeping outside of Peter’s room. Peter’s senses have been off, including the one that alerts him to shit, but he isn’t usually alerted to people he loves but now he’s being alerted to everything and nothing at the same time and he can’t keep up with what’s what and what’s not—

And he stares at Tony for a second, Tony sleeping, and Peter is surprised his first emotion isn’t jealousy, but it doesn’t crop up at all. He stares at him and feels bad that he’s sneaking out again, sneaking out like this, being a moron and trying to take care of his own issues when he’s worthless to himself and everybody around him, and he knows Tony’s gonna be mad and May’s gonna be mad and everybody here, Pepper and Morgan and Rhodey and all the Avengers and his friends too, they’re all gonna be mad if he goes out and gets himself hurt, and he’s probably doing the wrong thing and he hasn’t been able to catch these assholes yet so why would he be able to catch them now? But he looks at Tony all asleep and comfortable even in this shitty rolling chair, sitting guard outside his room like Peter is important or something, and he thinks about the bad guys doing this to Tony, too, doing whatever they did to him to Tony, and Tony’s dealt with too many sleepless nights in his lifetime and he never should have to again—

And Peter stands there for probably too long, looking at him and tearing up like an idiot, and he feels like hugging him and crying into his chest or something, because he doesn’t want to disappoint him but he doesn’t want him to get hurt, either—

And next thing he knows he’s tiptoeing down the hallway away from him, hoping Tony didn’t put any alarms in place or some shit to keep him from leaving—

And the suit he was wearing most recently isn’t anywhere to be found downstairs, and Peter has to override Friday again because she keeps talking to him like she’s trying to convince him to stay, and he’s sure Tony told her to do that and he’s sure she’s gonna tell on him, so he puts a couple lines of code into place, hoping he doesn’t fuck everything up, and he’s gotta search for another suit in all the shit Tony’s got going down here, and his eyes feel like they’re gonna pop out of his head—

And then he’s swinging towards a fire. He doesn’t even know what suit he’s wearing—he knows it’s his because it fits and he hears Karen’s voice coaching him, but he’s swinging towards this fire and suddenly it’s the most focused he’s felt in days, because there are people in there, people who need him, and the flames are licking up into the night sky and he doesn’t even know what the hell he was doing before this—

“Spider-Man, thank you,” a woman says, and he’s in there now and a fiery beam falls and he quickly moves her out of the way. He holds onto her and she clings to him and the fire is grappling for them both, and she’s coughing as he swings her out the window—

And then he’s in there again and he’s holding three kids, covered in soot and crying and coughing, and one is hanging on his back, and he makes sure all the glass is kicked out from the edges of the window before he swings them through it, just in case—

“Spider-Man, two of our men need help getting in the back—”

He sees badges, sees firemen, then he’s kicking down a door that’s blocked by debris, and he’s coughing and Karen is throwing up alerts on his HUD, and he can feel pinching in his knee, can feel the way his jaw clicks, can feel the heat where it’s branding him—but then he’s stumbling through waves of fire, clinging to his wrists and his ankles and his waist, and he can hear the moments he doesn’t remember, filmy and dreamlike, _Spider-Man my cat Maisie is in there still, please, she’d be hiding under the purple couch in 3B—_

And is he in 3B? He doesn’t fucking know, and he falls to his knees next to one couch, then next to another, then one more, and a cat hisses and meows at him, and he reaches in and grabs her, arms around her middle—

Then he’s handing the cat over and he’s outside and oh _shit—_

War Machine is in the air fighting the fire, and so is Falcon, and Captain America is over talking to some of the kids by the ambulances—wait is Sam Captain America Falcon? What’s Steve now? He never remembers he never remembers he never remembers—

And Peter stumbles back into Tony’s arms. Tony, not Iron Man, though Peter can see that he’s wearing the watch gauntlets on both wrists and he’s got a com in his ear, too. 

Peter can almost hear the arguments—everyone is always trying to keep Tony on the downlow, when it comes to being in the suit, after what he’s had to endure, what nearly knocked him out for good. But Tony always gets paranoid when it comes to Peter. Peter can’t even deny it, even if he wants to, because he literally heard Tony’s declaration from down the hallway way back when, when he was in deep discussion with Steve and Sam about what was next for all of them. For the Avengers. For Iron Man.

_I’m not retiring. I’m not retiring as long as Peter’s active. The kid needs me, I’m there, that’s it._

Remembering it makes Peter feel worse than he did already, than he did earlier when he left him sleeping, whenever the hell that was. And the whole ‘feeling like a kid’ thing with May and Tony comes into full color as soon as Peter sees him now, because it’s like everything else falls away but the pain he’s in, the pure stabbing pain of the burns all over him and the exhaustion that still has him in a vice grip, and the glass in his knee and the slice across his neck—

Tony looks angry, but his concern takes the front seat. He leads Peter away from the scene with a hand on his arm and another on his back. “Are we gonna have to lock you up like fucking Rapunzel?” he asks. “Honestly. What the hell is wrong with you?”

Peter knows there’s something he’s supposed to know. Something he did know earlier that was important, but his mind is a bingo ball again, everything slip sliding around and banging up against each other and the memories are forming together like slime, mutant monsters trying to overrun his head and bleed out his ears. He can’t fucking hold on.

“What you’re wearing right now?” Tony asks, leading him to a black vehicle parked by the side of the road. “Is ancient. Something we worked on together like a week after the whole Toomes incident.”

“Oh,” Peter says, and it hurts to try and remember. “Yeah. Yep. Feels bad. Old.”

He can feel Tony’s anger and he’s shaking with it, too, and he doesn’t say anything else, just takes him on the long walk over to the car, opening the back door and helping him inside. May is already in there and her eyes go wide when she sees him, and she grabs onto his arm, too, gently hauling him inside.

“Careful,” Tony says. “He messed himself up.”

“Of course he did,” May huffs at him. 

Instead of getting into the front with Happy, Tony sits in the back with the two of them, sandwiching Peter between him and May. For some reason, it makes Peter feel more secure. He’s bouncing back and forth between the world dissolving like he’s a small slug with no family or prospects, and being a butterfly that can hear everything and can see everything and has been alive for eight hundred million years and will be alive for eight hundred million more.

Both of them put arms around him gingerly. May starts petting his hair. Peter doesn’t want to blip out of this moment.

“You’re really showing some stupidity, baby,” May says.

He still wants to stay even though she thinks he’s stupid.

“Hero through and through,” Happy says, from the front seat. But even he’s shaking his head, and he doesn’t turn back and look at him. 

“I was doing something,” Peter says. He tries to find focus. He knows he was doing something important. He had focus earlier, when he was talking to MJ and Ned. When was that? What the hell did he say to them? Goddamnit.

“You were looking for Electro and Shocker, rag tag dream team,” Tony says.

It’s like actual alarm bells go off in Peter’s ears, so loud that he winces, and the burns flare up and the cuts pulse and he bends down, sucking in a breath that rattles in his throat like a death knell.

“Alright, sweetheart,” May says, tracing hands up and down Peter’s back. “Alright, relax.”

“Your girl told me,” Tony says, and he’s brushing soot out of Peter’s hair. “I’m tracking them down, Pete, okay? Me. Not you. I don’t know if they’re the ones that did this, made this happen, but we’re gonna find them, and we’re gonna see. Us. The heroes _not_ afflicted by no-sleep disease. The ones of us not burned in multiple places in a goddamn ill-advised burning building excursion.”

“They needed help,” Peter says, gasping through the pain and the way his eyes hurt. “Kids and families—”

“Honey,” May says.

“You’re too good, kid,” Tony says. “Just stay still when we get back to the tower, please. For the love of God. Let us handle things, let us solve this. Let us help you.”

Peter feels like he’s still on fire. The burns feel like they’re getting worse, like they’re spreading, crawling up and down his skin and making him their own. “I do need help,” he says, admitting it and hating himself for it. “But I just—I don’t want any of you getting hurt.”

“Peter,” May says. “You have got to give yourself a break, baby. You’re suffering, you’re hurt, you’re going through something.”

Peter feels Tony move in closer to him, leaning over him. He gently holds on to Peter’s shoulder. “This isn’t your job,” Tony whispers. “Not alone. You have backup, Spidey. When one of us is hurt, we protect that person. You don’t need to be out here trying to fix yourself while you feel like this, while this is happening to you. You’ve got us, okay? We’re your team. Right now, we’re working for you, okay? You don’t have to do it all alone. You took over for me, Webs, when I got hurt. You did that, right?”

Those memories are tinged in red, in the yelling in his head, his own yelling and wailing when he was alone, the tears he couldn’t stop when he sat at Tony’s bedside. They’re past that now but Peter still feels it, still feels the tearing pain of it, and that pain builds up his pain now and makes it bigger.

“Uh huh,” he says. “I did that.”

“We’re out here for you now,” Tony says, softly. “Okay? Please. Please, like May said. Give yourself a break. Just for a minute, just for a—hot minute, while we figure this thing out.”

Peter wants to. He wants to.

But he doesn’t know what the hell a break is.

~

Tony knows what’s happening is driving Peter insane, and therefore, he’s going insane too. He’s going insane because he can’t help him, because every goddamn thing they cook up to give him doesn’t do shit. Because all the books Helen and Bruce have laid out on the table aren’t telling them anything, because he just found out about his main suspects two hours ago and he still hasn’t run them down. They’ve been outrunning Peter for months now—Peter, who is smart as hell, smarter than Tony and more tenacious. How the hell is he gonna fucking find them if the kid couldn’t?

How long is Peter gonna have to endure this, because Tony is a piece of shit?

He and May help Helen dress Peter’s wounds, all the burns he picked up out there being a Big Damn Hero even though he’s fucking dead on his feet. And it’s scary as shit, because he’s acting like the walking dead, he’s acting like a zombie—he was zoning in and out before the fire, but now the blank spots come with muttering, come with swaying, come with little desperate whimpers that the kid doesn’t even try to hide or stop, because he’s just not solid in his head the way he should be. He doesn’t even know he’s doing it. He’s barely there.

Can this shit kill him? Can it?

Tony readjusts the com in his ear just in case Friday comes up with an update. She’s scanning the whole goddamn world for traces of those pricks, and Tony’s got drones out there looking, he’s got Clint and Nat and one of their off-brand SHIELD teams searching, too. But no dice yet. 

Helen gets finished checking Peter over, and she writes a couple things in his chart. Tony follows her over to the door, and she gives him a strange look.

“His body isn’t healing how it normally does,” she says, shaking her head. “Probably because all the regenerating factors that sleep gives you, he’s—he’s not getting. The burns will heal, but they’re—they’re not gonna heal fast. It’ll be more like a normal person’s healing. A normal person who’s sick.”

Not what Tony needed or wanted to fucking hear, but he doesn’t take that out on her. Still, he barely knows what the hell to say. 

Helen looks at him like she knows he’s glass, like she knows Tony might break at any given moment. “We were thinking of an induced coma,” she says, “but you said that being knocked out didn’t help, almost made it worse, so we figure there could be elements of whatever made this happen that we don’t understand, elements that wouldn’t do well with something like that, so we’re staying away from it for now, until we figure out more.”

The idea of an induced coma for Pete freaks Tony out anyway, in normal circumstances, and she’s right. Something could happen and the kid never wakes up, he could be trapped in his own head in the same kind of agony he described after he was knocked out. Shit, Tony still hates that, but he doesn’t blame Rhodey. Not really. Peter’s really convincing when he’s sad.

Tony clears his throat. “Still no indication of what he might have consumed, anything like that?”

“No,” Helen says, frustrated by it, clearly. “Still digging, I’ve got some leads, but, well—we don’t want any hopes up yet. We’ll see. I might need your help.”

“You’ve got it,” Tony says. “Anything for him, you know that.”

She touches his arm. “We will figure this out, Tony, I promise. We’re not gonna—it’s not gonna get to—point of no return.”

“I know,” Tony croaks, hardly sounding like himself.

She nods at him, and they part ways after that, and he hopes to God she’s going to figure something out and just doesn’t know it yet. He retakes his spot by Peter, and he and May are sitting on either side of the bed. They’ve been here before, on more than one occasion, but most of the time the kid falls asleep, he’s peaceful, he’s dreaming away whatever the hell he’s done to himself or gotten himself into. 

But this time he’s laying there blank-eyed, staring, occasionally glancing back and forth between them with questions in his gaze that they can’t answer. 

Tony clutches at his hand. 

“Hurts, still,” Peter says, and his cheeks go red like he’s embarrassed he’s saying such a thing. He winces, startles a little bit like the burns are really bugging him. He groans, swallowing hard. 

“Can we give him anything?” May asks. She looks exhausted too, rings under her eyes, and she’s holding Peter’s other hand. 

“He’s on morphine, but you know how that, uh—how things work, with him—”

“Yeah,” May says, sighing heavily. She glances at him again and he’s blinking up at the ceiling, still swaying a bit. The fact that he hasn’t slept feels like a demon in the room. Like a shadow draped over the three of them. An unsolvable problem. 

“What are we gonna do?” May asks. She’s asked that more than one time, since this started. More, since they got him home after the fire. They didn’t know how badly he was deteriorating in the car. It feels like those were his last, genuinely lucid moments, because he hasn’t properly conversed with them since then. 

“We’re still looking,” Tony says, swallowing hard and meeting her eyes. “We’re not gonna stop looking.”

“What if it’s not even them?” she asks, and the desperation in her voice scares him. She’s always such a hard ass, she’s always headstrong and straightforward and she wants Peter safe, sure, she wants him staying close to the ground, of course. But she never doubts him. She never doubts, despite all he’s been through, that he’ll be there in one piece at the end of the day. 

And now she’s talking like this in front of him.

Tony’s been worrying about that same question. What the hell are they gonna do? He won’t say it out loud, though. No way, not to her. Not about this.

“Listen,” Tony whispers. “Why don’t you try and go get some rest?”

“Not with him like this,” she says, her voice breaking a little bit now, which is even worse. 

“He needs us both at our best,” Tony says. 

Peter groans a bit, moving his head back and forth on the pillow. One of his arms flops up and covers his face, his fingers contracting in and out. “Peel my face off,” Peter groans, shaking his head again. “Burning.”

“Baby,” May says, grabbing at him with both hands now, since he pulled his hand out of her grasp. He pulls away from Tony too, and it feels like he’s about to throw a fit.

Tony’s brain tries to work on overdrive. “Spider-Man,” he says, with a little bit of authority.

Peter stops moving as much. Not completely, but he’s not thrashing anymore, and he seems like he’s listening. “Iron Man?” he asks. He blinks at Tony, but it feels like he can’t even see him. “Reporting—Avenger duty. I’m here, all—webbed up. Ready. Parachute on.”

“Relax,” Tony says, softly, trying not to let his fear seep into his voice. “Iron Man says—chill out. You’re okay. Just—relax, Spidey, let your body heal.”

Peter groans, and May gives Tony another worried look.

“How about you massage his shoulders and I get his temples?” Tony asks, motioning with his chin towards her. “Just to relax him a little bit. That’ll keep us both clear of the burns.”

“Okay,” May says, and Tony knows she would have said yes to basically anything that might give Peter some relief.

“C’mon, buddy,” Tony says, standing up and gently moving the kid forward. “Sit up a bit, here, we got you.”

Peter groans again but he allows them to move him, and when there’s enough space behind him, May slips in and lets him lean back against her. “Got you, honey,” she whispers. “Got you, got you.”

Peter pulls his legs up a bit, like for a second, he can read Tony’s brain waves and knows which way he’s gonna move, and Tony sits down on the bed and reaches out for him. As soon as Peter sees his hands, he leans in and rests his chin in Tony’s palms. He sighs, sagging towards him. 

It’s like a jolt in Tony’s heart. This kind, warm, wonderful person, too sweet for his own fucking good, and he’s here suffering. Tony feels tears forming in his eyes, and he just holds Peter’s face there for a second, tracking his thumbs back and forth across his cheekbones. He can see May’s hands working on Peter’s shoulders, and Peter sighs again. 

“Wanna sleep,” he says. He groans a little bit, like he can’t stop doing it, can’t get over the pain. “Don’t bother with me. Don’t. You both have. Better things.”

“Hush up, sassy,” May says, kissing the side of his head. 

“Momo needs you, Tony,” Peter groans, and he whimpers like he’s hurting again, which is like fucking knives carving Tony up.

“Morgan is an adult,” Tony says. “An adult child. She’s fine. She’s getting her own apartment in Brooklyn. Little hipster. She does her own laundry. She’s golden.”

Peter scoffs. Tony inches his hands up a bit, still gently holding Peter’s face in his palms, and he starts massaging his temples. Peter sighs, groaning, and he pitches his forehead forward a little bit. Tony is at a loss, feels like the weakest asshole on the planet, and he rests his forehead against Peter’s for a moment, trying to convey his assurances, his apologies, his fondness and love. _Please hang on._

“I feel like I’m—burned,” Peter whispers. 

“Because you are,” May says, as Tony pulls back. “You’re a wild thing and you can’t let go, even when you should.”

“Think somebody did this to me,” Peter says. “Sleeping. No sleeping thing. But why? Why would they? Pointless. It’s pointless. It’s just like, torture. Why would they wanna torture me like this? When they can’t even see it? Because that’s like, that’s usually their game, like when they grab me they wanna _see me_ hurting, you know—”

May gives Tony a horror-stricken look over Peter’s shoulder.

“Alright, bud,” Tony says. “Let’s not. Let’s not talk about torturing you in front of May, huh?”

Peter sighs, and goes a little quiet again. He fades out like he has been, with the muttering and the hands twitching and the occasional full-body spasm, which jostles the burns and makes him cry out in repressed agony. Because he’s still repressing his agony in front of other people, because even like this he doesn’t ask for help, doesn’t think he deserves it or has earned it, and Tony doesn’t get that, doesn’t know where the hell that came from, because he knows May didn’t teach it to him, and from what he knows of Ben, he doesn’t believe he did, either. It’s just in Peter’s nature to prioritize everyone else before himself. 

And this is torture. Tony feels it too—he has no fucking idea what time it is without checking, and he hasn’t slept in a while either, so he can’t even fathom what the hell it feels like for Peter. 

Tony thinks he sleeps a little bit, once they retake their seats beside him, but he can’t even be sure. He knows Peter doesn’t sleep. He knows, from the look in his eye, from the way he’s moving, from the things he says.

“Don’t get hurt, Tony,” he says, at some point, his eyes glazed over and staring past him, staring at the wall. “Just don’t, not again, not—on account of me—”

Tony rubs his arm, half-asleep and fully guilty. Peter’s skin still feels so damn hot, and Tony prays he’s not in too much pain. “I’ll do whatever I please, mister, especially for you. You get the royal treatment, you’ve earned it.”

“Don’t get hurt,” Peter says again, like he doesn’t even hear him. “Please, just—”

He trails off. 

This is torture, plain and simple, and they just have to sit here and take it. They just have to sit here and fuck around with medicine they don’t know is gonna work, they have to watch the screens Friday throws up on what seems like a fruitless search, they have to sit with Peter while he can’t sleep, while he suffers and cries out and tries not to do either one of those things. Because he thinks he’s a burden.

He’s in one of his strange states at about eight in the morning, sitting on the edge of the bed and swaying back and forth because he got fed up with laying there and not sleeping. May finally passed out, despite her immense guilt, and Tony is standing off to the side with Rhodey, Pepper and Steve.

“Do you even know if they’re the ones?” Steve asks. He keeps glancing over Tony’s shoulder at Peter, and Tony knows this is playing at his sympathies, too. Nobody likes seeing the kid like this.

“No, but we think so,” Tony says, with a sigh. He glances at the tablet Rhodey’s holding, which is showing Clint and Natasha’s movements. “They’re the biggest baddies the kid’s been in contact with recently, and they’re the ones he’s honing in on.”

Steve sighs too, and tries to put on that brave face of his. “I’m gonna go join the search, but we’ll defer to you if we find them. We’ll just keep them occupied until you get there, we won’t have any idea whether there’s an antidote where we find them or what.”

“Yeah, just call me, but I’m sure Friday’ll let me know too, if you guys get close,” Tony says.

“Still nothing from Clint and Tasha,” Rhodey says, shaking his head and handing the tablet to Pepper. “We’re gonna go check in with Helen and Bruce, see what they’re coming up with.”

“She seemed optimistic, earlier,” Pepper says, working her jaw back and forth, like she does when she’s worried. 

Steve takes Tony’s elbow, and draws him a little farther away from the room, and Rhodey and Pepper follow. 

“What?” Tony asks. It’s a perfect opportunity to quip at him, but Tony just doesn’t have the goddamn energy. He doesn’t deserve to have it, either, if Peter doesn’t.

“We need to have—an emergency situation in place,” Steve says. 

Tony stares at him.

“What do you mean?” Pepper asks. “For Peter? What kind of emergency?”

Tony shares a look with Rhodey.

“We’re not talking about the kid dying, Rogers—” Rhodey starts, and Tony doesn’t even goddamn like hearing that word in relation to Peter.

“No, that’s what I mean,” Steve says. “We can’t let that happen. We can’t, we—we can’t allow it. He’s our youngest member and we need to protect him. And we’ve all seen firsthand what happens to you, Tony, when you lose Peter Parker, and—well, you’ve been through enough. He doesn’t deserve it, his aunt doesn’t, and you don’t, either.”

Tony’s heart always aches when he remembers that time, all that time, and he doesn’t want to, especially not right the fuck now. “So what are you getting at?” he snaps, probably too mean.

“I’m not sure,” Steve says. “I know my blood is rejuvenating, if we get to that point.”

“You want us to give Peter your blood?” Rhodey asks, all accusatory.

“If it comes to that,” Steve says, narrowing his eyes. “And I know SHIELD had methods, in their heyday, of keeping people alive. I’m just putting it out there, we should—plan. Because we can’t fail him.”

Tony blows out a breath. “No, we can’t,” he says. “And you know I’ll do whatever. So write it all down, send it to me, tell me what the hell to do and if we get to that point, I’ll do it.”

“Knocking him out didn’t work,” Rhodey says, huffing.

“Yeah, well, that’s not on the list,” Tony says.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Steve says, and he turns and goes without another word. Tony doesn’t know whether that little talk made him feel better or worse, but he doesn’t think there’s any kind of better in his head until Peter’s the one that’s better.

“I’m gonna go look at the cameras again for the last couple days and try to mark the guys Spider-Man interacted with,” Rhodey says. 

“Didn’t we already goddamn do that?” Tony asks. 

“We didn’t track ‘em all down, because we’ve been focusing on the kid’s suspicions,” Rhodey says. “But going off what Steve said, let’s just—let’s just not have any surprises. Let’s have our suspect list ready to go if the Shocker and Electro thing doesn’t pan out.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, his throat dry. “Yeah, good thinking. Send it to me too.” He feels fucking useless, and he nods at Rhodey again when he pats him on the shoulder and heads out the same way Steve came in.

Pepper clicks her tongue and kisses the corner of Tony’s mouth. “I know Helen’s messaging you their progress but I’ll stick with her and Bruce, so they can focus and I’ll be the go-between, okay?” she says. 

“Yeah, good thinking,” Tony says. “I’m just. Here. Doing goddamn nothing.”

“You’re running and coordinating the search,” Pepper says. “They wouldn’t have even known where to start looking if it wasn’t for you and Friday.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, swallowing hard.

“And you’re here with Peter,” she says. “He’s like your kid, Tony, we all know this. I’m your wife and I know this. Morgan knows it. May put you on his school emergency contact card right alongside herself.”

Tony scoffs, shaking his head. “I don’t deserve him,” he says. “He’s constantly getting hurt or killed or half-killed or thrown into an eternally sleepless torture and yet here I am, failing at protecting him from this shit.”

“A taste of your own medicine,” Pepper says, raising her eyebrows at him. “A taste of what Happy, Rhodey and I had to deal with, with you. How’s it feel, baby?”

“I’d get down on my knees and apologize if I wasn’t so tired,” Tony says, smiling sadly at her.

She kisses him again, softly and full-on this time. “I’ll keep you updated,” she says. “And you do the same for me. I’m not sending Mo down here even though she’s chomping at the bit, I feel like she might be a little much for him right now.”

“When he’s better,” Tony says, pointing at her as she backs away from him. “As soon as he’s better, you tell her that.”

“I will,” Pepper says, smiling at him, then turning and following in Steve and Rhodey’s footsteps.

Tony walks back down the hall and into Peter’s area, and he stops.

He stops and he stares.

And he stares and he stares and he stares because he’s gotta be hallucinating. 

May is still asleep beside the bed. And Peter is. Gone. He’s gone. 

He’s been getting up to walk around when he gets too restless, so Tony doesn’t go over there and shake May awake quite yet.

But the goddamn IV is still there. And he’s not attached to it. They still had the morphine drip going and they were giving him fluids and last time he got up a couple hours ago he dragged it along with him.

“Friday,” Tony says, calmly, _calmly_. “Peter. Where.”

“ _Tracking on Peter Parker has been disabled due to the new FJFFLSNVSK protocol._ ”

Tony physically shakes at her goddamn garbled keyboard smash, because he knows, because he fucking knows, because the kid must have done something, _again_ a-fucking-gain, on death’s door and in plain agony and still slippery enough to outsmart them.

“No,” he says to himself, turning the other corner and gritting his teeth. “No, maybe he didn’t—he’s messed up right now, maybe he’s just—maybe he’s just—Jesus Christ, anything but what I’m thinking—” And he’s talking to himself, and he’s going crazy, and this can’t be happening, he can’t have gotten out again, he can’t have, this can’t be happening.

He stalks down the hallway looking around, praying he’s wrong, and everyone is just going about their business, walking around, typing on tablets, eating at their desks, and he doesn’t see the kid anywhere. Where the fuck could he be, in the state he’s in? Goddamnit. Goddamnit. 

Tony stops in the middle of the larger wing of the med bay, pinching the bridge of his nose and shaking his head. He feels dizzy, like he’s just gonna keel over right here. But he doesn’t get to do that. Not til all of this is over. Especially not with Peter...not here.

“Friday,” Tony says. “Was tracking on Peter disabled _today_ or was this an old override the kid put in?” he asks, kicking himself for ever giving Peter access to the goddamn controls to do shit like this.

“ _No_ ,” she says. “ _It was an old protocol Mr. Parker devised, which pairs me with his AI Karen if you are ever trying to locate a villain he considers his own. He has an entire list of villains which, if found by myself or one of your programs, are fed to Karen first before I am to inform you. They also disable tracking on him inside Stark facilities and his suits outside Stark facilities_.”

Tony stands there and shakes. She ratted him out fucking immediately, which is good, but it’s the rest of it that’s got him frozen, the rest of it that’s turning his blood cold. 

“Are you saying—are you telling me that you located Electro and Shocker through the scan I had you doing, and Peter’s little backdoor protocol forced you to inform him first—”

“ _—and give him a certain amount of time to clear the area once he was in a suit_ ,” Friday says. “ _It caused me to contact him on his cellular device—_ ”

“Jesus fucking—” Tony starts, choking on his own words, and he doesn’t even have time to wake May up before he’s rushing down to storage to get into a goddamn suit. He knocks into people as he makes for the stairwell, and his heart sounds like it’s starting and stopping, loud for everyone to hear like an emergency broadcast. “Where are they?” he yells. “Electro and Shocker. Location, tell me and build it into the mark 88, that’s what I’m going for. If anybody else is closer, send them the location too—shit, send it no matter what.”

He stomps down the stairs, his footsteps echoing against the walls. 

“ _You are the closest, Boss_ ,” Friday says. “ _Their last known location is only six blocks away from here._ ”

“And where the hell is the kid?” Tony asks, breathing hard, going down and down and down. “Override the protocol he did, track his suit—override. Dire need fucking—protocol, you can tell my tone of voice.”

She takes a minute, while she does it. “ _Peter is one mile away from their location_.”

“Fuck,” Tony grunts, trying to move faster.

~

He’s never been fast enough. He’s never, ever been lucky enough to hit things at the right angle, it’s always an uphill battle, always, and he yells and screams into the phone for Peter to goddamn pick up, he flies wildly through the sky like an out of control comet, but the kid doesn’t pick up because why the hell would he? He doesn’t on normal goddamn days, but especially now while he’s half inside his own head and running on fumes and on some goddamn catastrophic mission that he _just can’t stay away from, no matter what the fuck danger he’s put in, no matter who tells him to stay put, no matter who loves him and who wants him safe—_

“ _Here, Boss_ ,” Friday says.

Electro and Shocker are holed up in some old abandoned subway station, and Tony feels like he’s fucking glitching out, because one minute he’s diving down, the next he’s finding the blocked off entrance Friday highlighted for him, and the next he’s looming through the darkness, his heart bursting because Peter is here already, Friday is alerting that Peter is here already, and she’s finally fully connecting with his suit and he’s in some goddamn old model that was barely finished and how the fuck did he even find that shit and—

—all his systems are offline, his suit is seizing, _he’s_ seizing—

And Tony can hear cackling, can hear slamming against the walls and echoes and what sounds like surges, and he doesn’t know, but he does, he doesn’t know but his mind takes him there, gives him technicolor images and everything that’s too loud, too much contrast and grain and it hurts him, just thinking about it hurts him, and he flies and follows their voices, their laugher, follows Friday’s flashing red dots, and then he hears Peter scream, and he can’t even find his own voice but Friday fires the thrusters to move him faster—

—and he turns and everything slows down, it doesn’t really but it does in his head because when he sees things like this he really sees them, and he sees the two of them looming over his kid, _his kid_ , and they’re electrifying him and holding him down and he’s shaking and struggling and crying out in agony and Tony can’t look at it for another fucking second—

He fires repulsor blasts at both of them, doesn’t hold back before firing two more, and one of them hits the wall and crumples in a heap, and Tony flies at the one that’s still on his goddamn feet, tackling him until _he_ hits the wall and Tony pins him there.

“Christ, shoulda known the damn tin can was gonna fly in here to save the fuckin day—” Dillon says.

Tony feels half feral, desperate to look back at Peter but too afraid to make the move.

“What did you do to him, goddamnit?” Tony growls, his voice hardly sounding recognizable through the suit. He knocks him hard against the wall, and Friday assures him that Shocker is out of commission. But she doesn’t throw up any information about Peter. 

“Oh, well, little Spidey came in acting all drunk and shit, so we decided to—”

“You’re the fucking ones who did this to him, who poisoned him, tell me how the fuck you did it or what the fuck you did and maybe I won’t goddamn kill you,” Tony says, throat ragged with emotion.

Dillon shakes his head at him. “Dickhead, Spidey was asking the same shit, in not so many words, and we’d love to take credit for whatever fucked him up, but that’s not on us—”

Tony slams him back against the wall again, wary that he could hit back at a second’s notice. He feels like won’t, though, but he gears up the repulsor in the hand around his throat, just in case.

“Goddamnit, Iron Man, I’m tellin’ you—yes, we fucked with him today, and yes, we fuck with him all the goddamn time, all you fucking people and your savior complexes—but we didn’t do whatever the hell it was to make him all zonked out—shit, that’s not our game—”

Tony’s head feels clouded. “He can’t fucking sleep. You didn’t do that?”

“We’re handing out insomnia now?” Dillon asks, raising his eyebrows.

Tony slams him back again. “It’s not normal, prick, the amount of time, how it’s affecting him—you’re saying you—”

“Not us,” Dillon says, shaking his head. “Swear on all that’s holy. Or unholy, whatever the fuck you think I believe in, Jesus. We’d just electrocute him to death and call it a day, we’re not really fans of the long term bullshit, which is why he’s so fucking annoying—but we don’t really want him dead, you know? Fun messing with the little thing, he’s such a pain in the ass but he makes it all that much more—”

“You didn’t do this to him?” Tony yells, over him. “That’s what you’re saying?”

“No, we didn’t—shit, we didn’t make it so he doesn’t sleep, Christ, that’s bullshit boring—”

“Tony!” Rhodey’s voice yells, echoing off the walls. And then he’s beside him, and then Steve and Nat and Clint and Sam are piling in here too, and Tony doesn’t even goddamn say anything because emotion and fear and confusion are burning in his eyes and ears, and he feels like his mouth is stuffed with cotton. Rhodey seems to know what he’s thinking, what he needs without even asking, and he takes hold of Electro as Tony lets go.

Tony turns and marches over to Peter, where Nat and Clint are hovering over him. Steve is grabbing onto Shocker, checking his pulse and putting him in restraints, but Tony barely sees that out of the corner of his eye. His mind, his whole fucking _being_ is screaming out for the kid.

“We need to get him out of here,” Nat’s voice says. She says something else but Tony can barely hear her.

“Kid,” he whispers, still cognizant enough not to say his name while the others are in the room. He’s got his mask on still, and he’s twitching and gasping and making sounds that are almost inhuman. 

“We’re getting them out of here,” Sam says, yelling, and Tony glances over his shoulder to see them hauling both Electro and Shocker past him, and out the way he came in. 

“We’ve got the quinjet,” Clint says. “Check on him and—”

“Fly him up,” Nat says, and the two of them follow behind the others. 

Tony peels Peter’s mask off. He’s got new electrical burns on top of the ones from the fire streaked across his face. There’s a bad cut across his eyebrow. His mouth is open and contorting like he can barely recall how to form words, and his eyes are unfocused and blinking rapidly. 

Those fuckers—those goddamn evil pricks—could they be fucking lying? Or is the worst true and they’re telling the truth? Peter is this fucking far gone with no sleep, no rejuvenating himself—what the fuck is gonna happen? And Tony is asking himself again, can Peter die from this shit? He will if he keeps going out like this. If he keeps putting himself in these positions. But otherwise, Tony is just letting him suffer. 

You’re not supposed to do that to your child. You’re not supposed to fail them like that.

“Pete,” Tony says, just as Peter’s eyes focus, only slightly. He knows he has to put his mask back on because he’s going outside, but he almost doesn’t want to. It feels stifling. He sighs and does it anyway, as easily as he can. “I’ve got you, buddy,” he says, lifting him up into his arms. “I’ve got you. You’re a massive pain in the ass, you know that?” He’s going for lightness, but he just feels like an asshole.

He lifts off, clutching Peter close to him as he flies.

“Iron Man,” Peter whispers.

“Yeah, Iron Man is mad at you,” Tony says, and he doesn’t mean to. He needs to shut up.

“No mad at me,” Peter says, and he doesn’t sound like himself again. “No, just—problem, solve the—solve the problem—” He twitches again, like he’s still being electrocuted. “Ah, ah, it—hurts, Tony—”

“Okay, we’re going,” Tony says, holding him closer as he weaves through the dank underbelly of New York. “We’re going.”

~

Peter won’t stop moving once they get back to the tower. He doesn’t make words, not really, not even when he sees May, and the doctors have to treat him while he’s goddamn looming around back and forth in the hallway. It’s like a horror movie, and it’s worse than before, because it’s almost like he knows he came away from his big move without a solution. Like his uneven steps are filled with more dread than before.

“He can’t die from no sleep,” Tony says, to May, with Peter just in their line of sight, still being picked over by the doctors. “I looked it up.”

“He’s enhanced, as you’re always telling me,” May says, tears shining in her eyes. “This could—we don’t know what the hell the endgame for it is. And he’s only deteriorating. It doesn’t help that he keeps—rushing off, like the insane person he is—”

“He’s running on instincts now,” Tony says, swallowing hard. “He put old overrides into Friday, God knows when, I granted him all access and he took complete advantage of it—”

“He doesn’t want anyone getting hurt on his behalf,” May says, wiping at her eyes. “Especially you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “We’re gonna have to strap him down or something so he doesn’t escape.”

“I think this is the lead he’s been trying to follow,” May says, shaking her head, still trying to stop the tears. “And now he’s—hitting a wall, I think, he doesn’t know what to do next.”

That makes Tony feel fucking ill. The idea of the kid, messed up as he is, out there trawling the streets and being susceptible—they can’t let him out again. They can’t.

“I got rid of all his damn protocols,” Tony says. “And we took away his phone—”

“Did you tell MJ and Ned so they don’t worry?” May asks.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “I’m gonna have them come over here tomorrow, to uh—shit, I don’t know, can he even be cheered up at this point? Is that even still a thing?”

They both stare back at him. Peter is still standing, leaning against the wall now with Helen in front of him, putting something on the electrical burns on his cheek. She readjusts his shirt on his shoulder, and he doesn’t even really seem aware of her presence. 

“His stomach has been growling since you brought him back,” May says, and she sniffles again. “I want to—I’m gonna call ahead and go get him a chopped cheese sandwich from that bodega. He loves that and maybe we can—cut it up or something, make it—make it easier—” She’s starting to dissolve into tears, and just as Tony’s about to hug her she makes the move for him, wrapping her arms around his middle. 

“May,” Tony says, holding her tight and heaving a sigh, feeling more lost than he has in a while.

“Just keep an eye on him, please,” May says, clearly trying to contain her sobs. “Please, I’ll be right back, I’ll—bring Happy with me—”

“Bring Sam too,” Tony says, without really knowing why. He almost tells her he can just get it delivered, that she doesn’t have to pick it up, because that place has been calling here wondering if they’re gonna put in another order any time soon, which is weird, but kinda nice. But he understands the need to move out of Peter’s eyesight for a moment or two, especially because she seems like she’s in the middle of a breakdown. May always wants to be strong for him, especially when his strength is wavering.

“Okay,” she says, pulling back. “Do you want anything?”

His stomach hurts too, but he doesn’t wanna put a massive order on her plate. “Nah, focus on the baby, huh?”

She laughs and smiles a little bit. “Text me if he asks for me, alright? I’ll rush back up.”

“Get Sam to bring his wings, he can fly you back through the window,” Tony says. 

He earns another smile for that, and then she heads out, moving quickly, pulling her phone out of her pocket to make the order. Helen sweeps past Tony as he moves back into the room, and she doesn’t stop to say anything to him, clearly on a mission, and he hopes she knows something he doesn’t. He hopes she’s onto something, because he’s over here behaving like a complete fucking failure.

The least he can do is catch Peter when he falls, which the kid starts to do as soon as Tony is within steps of him. His legs seem to crumple from underneath him, like a flower that’s been stomped on, and Tony crosses the room in two long strides and grabs him around the waist before he can drop completely.

For a second, Tony hopes sleep is claiming him. That he’s finally just shutting down for a long, well-deserved and well-earned nap. But his eyes are still open, blaringly, and he grabs at Tony as he tries to straighten him back up.

“Come on, bud—”

“No, no...floor,” Peter mutters. His eyes are dark, bloodshot, alternating between shaking with activity and glazing over completely.

“You wanna be on the floor?” Tony asks, still holding onto him.

“Floor,” Peter says again.

Tony lowers them both down, and Peter is limp like a rag doll, like he’s finally given up, like his body has simply decided to no longer work, and Tony’s panic boils in the core of his chest. How has this been happening for so long and they still don’t know what the hell it is? What it’s gonna end with? How it’s affecting him? He could keel over at any fucking minute in a seizure. He could catch on fire spontaneously. They just don’t know, they haven’t figured it out yet. And now Rhodey and Nat are interrogating those assholes but they are _still_ holding fast to their story that they didn’t do it.

Where do they go from here?

Tony is basically cradling Peter like a baby. He’s got one arm around his shoulders, pillowing his head, the other resting on his collarbone, and Peter is splayed out across his lap like this is their final moment in a long and involved melodrama. 

“I’m gonna die, Tony,” Peter says, eyes tracing over his face.

Tony shakes his head. “Nope, you’re not,” he says. “I’ve cured death. So plan for the next eternity, buddy, we gotta find a new planet for when the sun burns out.”

Peter just blinks. “No, I’m—I’m dying. Right now. And you need—you need to get used to that. You need to—come to terms with that.”

“No,” Tony says, angry. “No, sorry. You’re not dying. You can’t die from lack of sleep, I checked.” And what the hell is the kid thinking, anyway? Whether he’s all fucked up or not, he should know that’s not something Tony’s ever gonna come to terms with or get used to. Ever. He feels fucking offended but mostly he feels nervous and upset, seeing him like this, holding him like this. He feels like he’s lost weight. He feels like he’s broken.

“I know you’re not gonna—lock me up,” Peter says, sucking in a strange breath that seems to rattle in his throat. “Or, or, or—strap me down. You guys wouldn’t, you—you might talk about it, but you won’t—”

“We will, if you keep trying to go out and hurt yourself,” Tony says, and god fucking dammit he’s tearing up, and he simultaneously wishes that May wouldn’t walk in on Peter like this and wishes she’d just come back. “We will,” he says again.

Peter shakes his head. He’s so goddamn pale, and Tony hopes the sandwich can cheer him up a little bit. At least it’s something. They need to gather all of his favorite things. They need to smother him in love and happiness and hope that brings his energy back up. Helps him heal. 

“I’d break out of it anyway,” Peter says, and his blinking is getting slower. 

Tony’s frustration billows. “Christ, Pete—”

“I’m going in and out, I can’t—it’s like when I’m not present, my body is trying to—find the routine, find—find the problem, find how to—fix—”

“Tell your body to let us take care of it,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “We said that. I already told you that. Listen, lock it in, make it a touchstone. You’re so damn stubborn.”

Peter looks like he’s fading again, and Tony shakes him a bit. “I don’t...I don’t want you guys...just don’t...don’t be hurting, don’t...don’t miss me…”

“Listen,” Tony says, voice breaking. “You’re not dying. You don’t give up. You don’t. I’m so goddamn sorry it’s taking this long, Pete, I’m so sorry your brain just doesn’t believe we can handle it without you, but I get it, because you’re the most capable out of all of us, and this shit isn’t fair, and it’s even worse than our main leads are screwing with us—”

“Electro Shocker,” Peter says, shaking his head. “They said wasn’t them—”

“Could be lying,” Tony says, adjusting him in his arms, and Peter turns into Tony’s shoulder. He squeezes his eyes shut tight like it hurts to do it, and Tony holds him closer. “We’re going through everybody you interacted with leading up to this…” He sucks in a breath, because he knows they haven’t found anything yet. Peter knows too, because he’s still like this. “I’m sorry, kid. I’m sorry. But you’re not dying. You’re not.” _You can’t be._

“Feels like it,” Peter slurs, and he shakes again. 

“Because you ran into a burning building,” Tony says. “And just hours later, you went to confront two of the biggest shits you have to deal with on the regular and got yourself fucking beaten and electrocuted and—whatever the fuck Shocker does.” _Shock, moron. He shocks._

“Can’t stop,” Peter says, the words running together. “Fix. Fix me, fix—help—need to get—back on the job.”

Tony shakes his head, brushing Peter’s sweaty hair out of his eyes. “You’re relentless. You don’t listen. You are my karma. You’re everything I ever did that tortured everyone I love.”

“No torture,” Peter says, swallowing hard. “I do love you. No torture. No dead for you. Let’s just do nothing. Let’s just.” He stops in the middle of his sentence, but his point has come fully across, whether he meant for it to or not. Tony has a stone in his stomach, because he’s telling the kid he’s not gonna die but you never know anything for real in life, you never do, and he never could have guessed he’d have to spend five years without him because of some purple genocidal alien fuck, and he’d never have guessed he would have walked away from the bitter pain of that compound battlefield.

You never know. You never know what the hell is gonna happen, but losing the kid again isn’t allowed. It just isn’t. He’s already failed, letting the pain go on this long. He can’t let him down. This amazing kid with his wonderful, kind heart. 

“I love you too,” Tony says, emotion lacing his words. “Let’s just do nothing. You’re right. You’re always right, Jesus, how do you do that, huh?”

Peter snorts, and Tony can’t tell if he’s zoning again. He keeps shaking with the damn aftershocks and tremors, and Tony has half a mind to slam down into the interrogation room and knock those two fucks around a little bit more.

“C’mon, buddy boy,” Tony says, trying to remind himself that giving Peter support is important, incredibly important, as long as the others are still working on solutions to the problem. Staying with him, letting him know he’s supported—that’s paramount. Peter needs to see people, needs to hear reassurances. He’s tactile and very in tune with the people he cares about. And Tony’s lucky enough to be in that corner. 

“Do nothing,” Peter groans. “Seep. Into the floor.”

“Nope,” Tony says, scooting so he can get to his feet, and he gets a hold of Peter, draping one of his arms around his neck so he can haul him up. The kid _feels_ light, and Tony thinks about the oncoming sandwich again. He’ll fucking feed it to him, if he needs him to. He clears his throat. 

“Going somewhere?” Peter says, trying to plant his feet on the ground. 

“Putting you back in the bed,” Tony says, rubbing his thumb back and forth across Peter’s wrist. “Better than the floor. Seep into pillows and one thousand thread count sheets.”

Peter huffs and takes drunk steps along with him, and it takes them a good minute to walk three feet, but Tony’s good with it. He finally sets him down, brings up both of his legs, and tucks him in like he’s a little kid. 

Peter just blinks at him. “Hurts,” he says. “All of it. Pain is. Gargantuan.”

“I know, Pete,” Tony says, feeling goddamn sick about it still. He doesn’t know what else to say. Normally he’d quip about the big vocab word, but he doesn’t feel like jabbing at him is the best course of action right now. Like kicking someone when they’re down.

“My body just—doesn’t understand,” Peter says. “Just like my brain.”

“What do you need, while we figure this out?” Tony asks, feeling stupid. “Any particular music? Lighting different? May’s out getting your favorite sandwich, so that might perk you up a bit. Your stomach keeps growling.”

Peter’s head tips back and forth. “Is that what that is?”

“That’s what that is,” Tony says, sitting beside him. He pats his knee, trying to brush aside the feelings of loss and horror that are clawing at his heart. “What do you need, buddy? You want any other food? I can make up a whole buffet table for you. Can get Morgan to whip up some of her cookies with Pep, you know how good she is with the sprinkles—”

Peter smiles a bit, which is nice, and he nods and Tony can’t tell if he’s requesting the cookies or if he’s just fading. He blinks and swallows hard and trembles again, twisting his neck back and forth. “Everybody,” he says. 

“Everybody?” Tony repeats, scooting a bit closer to him. 

“Wanna see all of ‘em,” Peter says. 

Tony’s phone starts ringing before he can inquire further, and his brows are furrowed so severely that he’s bringing on a headache. He shifts a bit, still staring at Peter, and pulls his phone out of his pocket.

It’s Happy.

Which makes him worry, because he’s with May. 

Tony’s hands shake as he answers, still honed in on Peter but anticipating something weird. What the hell could have gone wrong with the sandwiches? Is he too damn paranoid? Big yes, but Jesus. 

“What’s—”

He can’t even get his question out before he hears a crash. 

“Tony,” Happy says, breathing hard. “There’s a goddamn—something going on at the bodega,” he yells, and there’s another crash, and some yelling, and _another_ crash. “May said she saw the guys behind the counter putting some kind of powder into Peter’s—Jesus Christ—Peter’s sandwich, and she didn’t even think about it, she just leapt over the counter, Tony, like a cat, like a fucking jaguar or something, and tackled this Jersey prick to the ground, without even saying shit to me or Sam—and then the other sandwich guy tried to fight her too but Sam’s—listen, there’s a fucking fight going on in this bodega that little miss May started, and I believe her, Tony, I believe her—”

Tony feels like he’s a block of ice, and chills run up and down his spine. “Sending Rhodey as backup,” he says. “Friday, hear that? Send Rhodey—”

“ _Colonel Rhodes is alerted and moving to Mr. Hogan’s location,_ ” Friday announces. 

“He’s coming,” Tony says. “Bring them in, I’ll send a cleanup crew too to secure the scene and figure shit out.”

“Can we just—holy Christ—can we just bring them—I mean, they’re kind of civilians—"

“At the very least they were poisoning someone’s sandwich,” Tony says, hoping May just didn’t see extra salt and overreact. He’s staring at Peter now, who’s staring off behind him with glassy eyes. “And at the worst—fuck, Hap, they could be the ones who did this.”

Could they? Could they? He feels insane.

“Two guys at a bodega?” Happy asks, and there’s more crashing and grunting behind him. 

“We’ve been going there a lot,” Tony says, trying to think, put it together. “For a while now, but a few times recently—and shit, they were calling here before asking if we were gonna place another order.” His heart dips and he shakes his head. It feels—crazy, what the hell is going on? 

“She’s sure she saw what she saw, and we can get their tapes, but they’re—Jesus, Tony…”

He trails off, ominously. There’s no more crashing on the other end of the line, but he hears some talking and grunting and he’s getting really anxious, now. As if he wasn’t before.

Peter pulls his hand out from under the covers and paws at Tony’s shoulder. He’s looking at him now, but still not saying anything, and Tony takes Peter’s hand with his free one. 

“What, Happy?” Tony asks, eager for Rhodey to fucking make it there.

“Okay, yeah, something’s going on here,” Happy says. “They’ve got three people tied up in the storage room.”

Tony sets his jaw. 

~

It’s always been a slippery slope, a fine line between what the Avengers can do without pairing with the police. Rhodey practically is the police, in some ways, so it’s good to have him on their side, and they’re able to weave around the situation by informing them in the least amount of words that they’ve got someone dying, superhero mission, etc, and they have to interrogate these guys before it’s too late. Rhodey and Tony’s team secure the bodega, close it off, get the actual owners safe and fed and talking, and they’re able to get access to their security cameras, too. 

But the pricks break as soon as Tony walks into the room they’re being held in. They’re both older men, maybe just a little bit younger than him, and they look smarmy and slimy and pathetic, and even more so when they both start throwing their hands around and making a whole production.

“We’ve been going through the whole list, right?” Rhodey asks, cool as a cucumber despite all the yelling. “Of people Spidey interacted with before this.”

“Right,” Tony says, closing the door, listening to it seal shut menacingly. 

“And the two guys at the jewelry store were the only ones we couldn’t ping,” Rhodey says, trying to be louder than them. “And these two—”

“Listen, that place isn’t worth shit,” the taller one says, pointing at Tony. “They got plenty that can be taken, okay? That they don’t need, alright? Robin Hoods—that’s us, we’re—you know, we can sell that stuff, and not them, but Spider-Man—”

“They started talking about it right off,” Rhodey says, louder still, but the two assholes are still talking and talking and Tony is having a hard time focusing. “And that night, when they got away from him, they let off a sort of smoke bomb that had the drug in it—”

Lightbulb.

“They’ve been dosing him,” Tony says, blood boiling. 

“They realized it didn’t do anything, or didn’t do what they wanted, so they grabbed the goddamn delivery guy at the fucking bodega and dosed Peter’s sandwich right then,” Rhodey says. “And they did it again when Pete came in a couple days ago, and they were doing it _again—_ ”

Tony feels like he’s gonna fucking drop. One, they’ve been doing this to Peter multiple fucking times, which makes Tony want to leap across the fucking table just like May did when she saw them doing it. And two, somehow they know who the fuck Peter is, they know that he’s Spider-Man, and that shit is never, never okay with Tony, ever, unless the person in question has gone through multiple examinations and proved themselves worthy of the information. And these pricks absolutely have not, they’re ruining Peter’s goddamn life and _fuck_ none of it matters right at this second, because they’re here, they’ve got them, they’re the ones that did this so they’re the ones that can fix it, and then Tony can deal with everything else—

He takes two steps forward and slams his hands down on the table between him and them, leaning and looming over them, and they stop talking right away. 

“We’re gonna have words, after this, trust me,” he says, and he barely sounds like himself, the horror in his throat rearing up to get them. “But right now—”

“We were not trying to torture him,” the shorter one says, almost whispers. “We were just trying to kill him. Clear shot knockout.”

“Not what you want to be saying to him,” Rhodey pipes in.

“Mistake,” the taller one says, as Tony feels like he’s about to fucking lose his shit. “We made a mistake—”

“Well, unmake it,” Tony says, leaning further over. “You’re gonna get him better, you’re gonna help me fix this—”

“We don’t have an antidote or anything,” the taller one says, wiping a strand of greasy hair out of his eyes. “We’ve got...the drug itself, we bought it from some guy who got it from another guy and this that and the thing—”

“Where is it?” Tony asks, swallowing hard. “Where?”

~

They retrieve it from their fucking villainous liar, which is actually just a shitty, run-down apartment in Queens, and Tony still doesn’t know how they were holding down the bodega and managing all this, because these two seem like massive fucking morons.

But he’s not really thinking about anything else right now other than getting Peter better. Not having an antidote isn’t the best scenario, but frankly it’s hard to find a best scenario in one of the worst goddamn scenarios he’s ever found himself in. But he’s had to synthesize his own antidotes and serums from the drugs themselves plenty of times, and Helen and Bruce are a hundred times smarter than him, so with the two of them and the team of nurses, he feels like they can figure this out. 

That doesn’t stop him from having tunnel vision, though. From falling into his own version of what Peter’s going through, except he’s functioning on high gear only to get this done, only to get this better, and the rest of his life, the rest of the things he needs to do, his brain sets aside or buries or forgets altogether. He sits in the lab in front of his work, in front of Friday’s tests running and the splitting materials and Helen analyzing things beside him, Bruce making frustrated noises and adjusting his glasses, because every move he makes is big, and Tony doesn’t hear people when they tell him things that don’t have anything to do with making the antidote, with saving Peter. He doesn’t know what time it is and doesn’t know anything but measurements and run-throughs and fixing this and _fix me—_

At some point Pepper shoves a glass of water into his hand. 

“Oh, yeah,” Tony says, startled back to life, suddenly realizing how much his eyes are burning. 

“Oh, yeah,” Pepper mocks, but he can see the concern in her eyes. “Just put Morgan down, she pushed me and pushed me to stay up until she was able to see Peter go to sleep, but I told her it would probably be tomorrow.”

The water is cold, and Tony takes a couple sips, looking at her. “What time is it?” he asks. 

“It’s almost midnight,” she says. She rubs his shoulder, and he blinks, trying to refocus. “Bruce called me in here. Said you weren’t listening to him and doing basic human things to survive.”

Tony glares over his shoulder, and Bruce doesn’t look up. But Tony knows he can feel the force of it.

“You’re a basic human,” Bruce says, simply, still not looking.

“I’m the opposite of basic,” Tony says. “Just because you’re—”

“Let’s not get petty, Tony,” Bruce says, and he’s smiling when he finally glances at him.

“Tony,” Helen says. “We’ve almost got it, and I’ll bring it to you once we’re sure, okay? You’ve been invaluable, as always, but you should go sleep.”

“I can’t sleep,” Tony says, emotion welling up in his throat, and he takes another sip of water to swallow it down. “Not while he can’t sleep.”

“Then go be with him,” Pepper says, rubbing the back of his neck, now. “His friends are with him now, and May’s hovering on the brink of passing out, and I know it would be easier for her if you were there. She’s hearty, but she loves her sleep, her body doesn’t allow her to sacrifice it as easily as yours does.”

“My dumpster fire body, you mean,” Tony says, glancing at her. 

She’s not playing with him, though, and she’s got that look on her face that’s full of love and sympathy that floors him every time. He never knows how someone can value him like that. He doesn’t know how it’s possible. “It’s almost over,” she whispers.

“It is,” Helen says, louder. “We’ve almost got it, and it will work and counteract the agents keeping him in limbo.”

Bruce grunts his assent, still staring into a microscope.

“That drug was some powerful stuff,” Tony says, putting the glass down and rubbing his eyes. “Once this is over, we’ve got to—figure out where the hell they got it, figure out how to—keep them the hell away from him, since they know who he is—” Imagining all the other problems they have, for a moment, is—troublesome. They start to bang down a door in his mind, ready to tear him up. He knows Sam and the others are dealing with Electro and Shocker, the transfer to the Raft. So that’s good. But everything else...

“Don’t think about it right now,” Pepper says, ever the smart one. “Just—go be with him, help him through the final bits of this. Soon he’s gonna be sleeping, Tony, he will.”

Tony blows out a breath and nods. They’ve been fighting against the clock since they got a hold of the drug. This has to work.

~

When Tony gets back into the med bay, he sees Peter and the kids walking the halls. Peter is dragging his feet, shuffling along, and Ned and MJ are on either side of him, their arms around him, holding him up. There’s no light in Peter’s eyes, and they’re sunken and darker than they were before, if that’s possible. His whole face is pallid and drooping with despair, and MJ brushes his hair back, caressing his cheek briefly, clearly uncaring whether Ned sees or not. Ned tightens his hold on Peter’s waist when Peter wavers a little, and the kid grunts when he sees Tony starting down the hallway.

“How’s he doing?” Tony asks, when he catches up with them, knowing it’s better to ask them and not Pete.

“Uh, restless,” MJ says, with a bitter laugh, and he can see the emotion right behind her eyes, like this is killing her too, to see him this way. “He wanted to walk, and we’ve been—walking, for a little while now.”

Peter groans, hanging his head, and MJ reaches around and runs her hand through his hair again. 

“You’re working on it, right?” Ned asks, and he looks wild-eyed and fearful, which is never how Tony would describe that kid. “Because he’s. He’s—he’s not, he’s not fine.”

“Fine, Ned,” Peter slurs. 

“You’re not fine,” Ned says, louder, and he presses his free hand against Peter’s chest. “You’re not fine, Peter.”

Tony stands there with mixed emotions, because Peter’s plight has been plaguing him like black death in his lungs, but he loves seeing just how much Peter’s people love him. Those two were lucky finds, valuable friends, and Tony knows how important that is to have. His girlfriend and his best friend and they’d clearly both go to war for him, which is exactly what the kid deserves. Tony doesn’t remember when the hell either one of them found out about Spider-Man, but seeing them right now, like this, he figures he would have authorized it, anyway. 

“Lemme take him,” Tony says. “You two get some sleep—that’s what May’s doing, right?”

“She made us dinner earlier and she kept saying she didn’t want to sleep and for nobody to let her sleep but then she fell asleep and we…” MJ doesn’t quite finish her sentence, glancing at Ned.

“We felt bad waking her up, and Peter had a moment at the time—”

“Don’t wake May up,” Peter says, and he rolls his head back around, barely holding it up. He blinks at Tony like he’s surprised to see him there. “Sleep. Somebody—some—some Parker has to sleep and it’s her, let it—be her.”

They’re all looking at him the same way, like he’s too much, too good, too self-sacrificing. 

“Okay,” Tony says. “Lemme get him—just pull back the curtain in the room he’s in, there are two beds beside him that aren’t in use, and if May wakes up just tell her we’re out here doing the rounds. She can take the third bed in the room attached to Peter’s, but I doubt she’ll do that.”

“We can stay with him, Mr. Stark,” Ned says. And then he yawns, big, which instantly transfers to MJ, too. Ned shakes it off and looks embarrassed. “I mean.”

Tony just starts gently taking Peter from them, and Peter slumps against his shoulder, barely planting his feet on the ground. “Helen’s gonna be up here with the antidote any minute here,” Tony says, wrapping his arms around Peter’s middle. “And then he’s gonna be out. You guys can sleep and then be well-rested for when he wakes up, alright?”

“What about you?” MJ asks, and Tony hasn’t spent a ton of time with her, but he’s a little surprised at the amount of concern in her voice, for him. 

“I’m good,” he says, rubbing Peter’s back. “Promise.”

“Can you wake us up when he gets the thing?” Ned asks, anxiously looking at Peter as the kid starts adjusting, standing more on his own but still pressing his forehead to Tony’s shoulder. “And when he falls asleep?”

“Yep, absolutely,” Tony says.

They both stare at Peter for another couple seconds, and then they agree and back up, still glancing at him as they walk down the hall and back into his room. When they turn the corner out of sight, Tony palms the back of Peter’s neck. 

“You wanna keep walking, buddy?” Tony asks. “You wanna sit and take a break?”

Peter only grunts. He reaches back and puts his hand on top of Tony’s hand and doesn’t say anything, moving his head back and forth a little bit. His weakness is permeating, which isn’t something Tony can normally say for Peter. The kid is strong as hell, resilient, but this has taken it out of him in a way Tony hasn’t seen before, along with his own penchant for needing to help people. 

He wishes for Helen to please, please get it here within the next couple of minutes. Please, Jesus, because for some reason this feels like the end, and he’s seen the end for people before, he’s seen it for Peter, and he can’t see it again, he can’t fall into that, he can’t let it happen.

You can’t die of no sleep. He reminds himself of that, he repeats it in his head when Peter leans on him hard and squeezes his hand. 

“Walk,” Peter says, without any more pretense, cutting off Tony’s doomsday thoughts. 

“Okay,” Tony says, and he presses a quick kiss to the top of the kid’s head without thinking about it. He pulls his hand out from underneath Peter’s, patting his shoulder before readjusting him at his side, his arm around his waist. 

They start walking. Peter drags his feet and it feels like he’s running on autopilot again, and Tony wonders where he goes, wonders if there are more restful places in his head, and maybe part of his brain is shutting down to make room for all of this exhaustion, maybe somewhere he’s finding something, despite the drug, despite the shit these guys did to him. 

“We’re gonna have to do some serious upgrades, kid,” Tony says, talking to talk and half talking to himself. “You can’t be just consuming fucking gaseous poisons—that shouldn’t be possible, you must have had some kind of—rip or some shit, some kind of something we didn’t cover, I don’t even know. We just have to—I wanna put you in a bubble, alright?” He cranes his neck to look at him, and Peter is breathing hard through his mouth, staring straight ahead. “I’ll attach iron arms to it, like the iron spider, and it’ll be impenetrable, nobody can get close to you, you’ll be able to knock ‘em all out of the way just by moving a couple feet from side to side.”

Peter blinks a little slower, and then he huffs out what sounds like a laugh. 

“Gaseous,” he says. “Gas.”

Tony snorts and rolls his eyes. “Not you laughing at a fart joke right now, Pete. No way. And your own fart joke, at that.”

Peter smiles again and leans into him a little bit. “Not me,” he says. “I—I don’t know what you’re uh, talking about.”

Tony smiles a little too big, and he reaches around with his free hand and holds Peter’s head for a second in a half-hug, ruffling his hair. 

“Suit gets torn up all the time,” Peter says, once Tony lets go of him, his voice sounding ragged. “Probably—that. Probably because of that.”

The kid has so many suits at this point that one of the magazines, Cosmo or some shit, was calling him a fashionista. But Tony wishes he would wear the iron spider and the iron spider only, purely because it’s the safest. 

“I’ll be your own personal seamstress, Pete,” Tony says. _If it’ll keep something like this from happening again, I’ll do any fucking thing_ he doesn’t say. 

Tony rambles on after that. About everything, about Morgan climbing inside the car engine the other day while Tony was working on it, about Pepper’s cupcake binge and the subsequent backing and supporting of the cupcake company, about Sam not realizing his phone was dictating all his conversations and sending them to Tony’s phone unfiltered. He knows Peter probably knows these stories already—he came over a little after they’d gotten Morgan out of the engine—but if Tony doesn’t tell stories he’ll just start saying emotional shit and then he’ll start crying and he doesn’t wanna do that, he’s done enough of that, he’s—

“I love you,” Peter says, simply, not looking at him as they turn around at the end of the hallway. “Tony.”

Tony clears his throat, glancing at him, hoping for Helen again. “I love you too, bud.”

They walk in relative silence after that, and Peter slumps and slumps and leans on him heavy, and just when Tony doesn’t think he’s gonna be able to haunt these halls anymore, the elevator dings and Helen comes striding out.

Tony feels like his whole body goes stiff, like about seventeen alarms go off in his head along with twenty-three explosions, but Peter doesn’t even seem to notice. They stop—Tony makes them stop—and Peter does notice that, shifting a little and hanging his head again.

“Helen,” Tony says, holding onto the kid with both hands now. “You—”

She’s holding a syringe, and he’s never seen her so focused. “Just gotta stick it into his arm,” she says, walking right over to them. 

Tony’s heart is wild in his ears. “Okay,” he says. He directs his attention to Peter, and he pushes up his sleeve on the arm closest to her. “Buddy, we’ve got the drug right here, okay? Just a little shot and that’s it.”

“Say no to drugs,” Peter mutters, picking his head up, moving to rest it on Tony’s shoulder again. 

“Usually, yeah, that’s the way to go, but this one—this one’s good, you’ll like it,” Tony says. He rubs his arm, and nods at Helen when Peter huffs a little bit. She sanitizes the area with a cotton ball, then she braces her gloved hand on his arm and injects him. 

Peter jumps a little bit, groaning more violently than he has in a while, here. “Killing me,” he says. “Don’t. Like shots. No doctor.”

“I’m a good doctor,” Helen says, pushing the entire serum into his arm before she pulls the syringe back out as easily as she can. “You’ve told me before that I’m your favorite.”

“Favorite,” Peter says, letting out a huge sigh. 

Tony stares at the kid’s arm like something should sprout there. “How long—”

“Shouldn’t be long,” Helen says, meeting Tony’s eyes as she rubs Peter’s shoulder. 

“And you’re sure it’s—”

“It’s exactly what we came up with,” she says, nodding at him. “It’s fine, it’s safe, it’s gonna work. It will. I promise.” She nods at him one more time and turns on her heel like she knows he’s gonna keep questioning him if she stays, and Tony swallows hard. He’s all keyed up now, two steps outside panicking, and he feels like every part of him is alight. 

Peter leans back and looks at him. He’s still all drunk acting, all zombie-like, and Tony’s doomsday tendencies are trying to grab hold of his head again. 

“Walk, walk,” Peter says, and this time it feels like something’s zapped him or something, because he’s not lethargic or leaning, and he grabs onto Tony’s hand and starts trudging down the hallway. He’s not fast, like he is normally, but he’s not slow like he was before Helen got here, either. 

“Where we going, kid?” Tony asks, squeezing Peter’s hand, but the kid doesn’t answer him, even when Tony speeds up a bit to move alongside him. He doesn’t let go of Tony’s hand, though, and Tony almost feels like he’s running from something. Running from all this, running away from the pain and the tiredness that’s like a ghoul clinging to him at this point, sucking away at his life-force and taking it for its own. 

But after a few minutes, he stops.

He stops and he stands there and he sways a little bit on his feet. He still holds onto Tony’s hand, and Tony didn’t know him when he was small—he’s seen plenty of pictures, sure, but he wasn’t _there_ —but, for a moment, Peter looks very childlike and confused and Tony figures this is what it would have felt like, to have known him when he was little and growing and learning the world. And he’s worried, watching him, he’s worried when Peter meets his eyes, but Peter gives him a look that Tony takes a moment to interpret.

Peter looks—grateful. Relieved. 

He sways again like he still can’t believe it, can’t believe what’s finally happening, but he knows it is, he can tell, like a lethargic cog finally kicking back into gear and working again. Peter doesn’t say anything. He finally lets go of Tony’s hand, and he scoots back until he hits the wall, and Tony follows him, afraid to break the spell. Peter slides down and he sits, his legs stretched out, and Tony sits beside him on the ground, watching him, waiting. 

“Okay,” Peter says, and he laughs a little bit, and it sounds kinda manic but it’s still one of the best sounds Tony’s ever heard. “Okay, I—I, uh. Okay. Oh—oh man, I…” His eyes are drooping, and he glances at Tony, and he shakes his head, blinking and blinking, and still swaying.

Tony doesn’t know what the hell to do. He doesn’t wanna say anything and mess things up, because he’s constantly worried things aren’t gonna go the way they should, especially with how bullshit this entire scenario has been. But it looks like—it finally looks like—

Peter laughs again, and yawns and laughs, and a few tears trace down his face. Tony reaches over and wipes them away, nodding at him. 

“Go to sleep, bud,” Tony whispers. “It’s alright. I’ll get you back to your room soon as I know you’re asleep.”

“Sleep, I just,” Peter says, huffing another laugh with less energy. “It’s...no way, it can’t—God, I’m so tired…I’ve been so...I’ve been so tired...”

He works through it for another minute or so, his words making less sense and the yawns becoming more frequent. 

Then he leans his head on Tony’s shoulder. 

Then his breathing evens out. 

And then.

And then.

Tony waits. He’s afraid to move. He doesn’t know how the hell long he sits there, but eventually he peels Peter back from him, gently, gently, so slowly. 

The kid snores a little bit. 

Tony blows out a breath and moves around, slipping one arm underneath Peter’s knees and the other around his lower back. He lifts him up until his head is resting on his shoulder again, at a bit of a different angle this time, and he moves slow as fucking molasses as he heads back to his room. 

Everyone is asleep when he gets back in there. May curled up in the chair by the bed, snoring up a storm, and the other two in the beds Tony told them they could crash in. MJ’s eyes snap open when he steps inside, even though he’s being quiet as hell, and she stares at him all panicked before he nods at her, hoping she gets his meaning. 

Tony walks over to the bed and lays Peter down, and then MJ is there with him, helping him arrange the covers. Then May’s snoring stops, almost like she sensed a shift in their situation, and Tony looks over to see her waking up. She covers her mouth with her hand, and he can see the tears shining in her eyes. 

Ned appears too, almost moving on tip-toe, and they adjust Peter’s pillows and pull the comforter up under his chin and change the thermostat, putting Friday on silent alert in the room. They move in a cohesive unit, with one focus, and they somehow manage to do it in complete silence. Tony lowers the lights until they’re a glowing, dim purple, and Peter finally, finally looks serene. 

He’s finally, actually _sleeping._

The four of them stand there and Tony feels like he’s holding in a complete freakout, the amount of relief and happiness too loud for the situation. He feels May touch his shoulder, and he can hear them all breathing, trying to keep their hysterics in, but May grabs at Tony, grabs at MJ and Ned and suddenly they’re all four in a circle, holding onto each other, heads together in a hug that’s infused with all the brightness and buzziness that comes with loving Peter. With knowing he’s healing, finally. The shuffling of their shoes and the brushing of their clothes and the barely contained laughter all sings with it.

_He’s gonna be okay. He’s gonna be okay._

~

Peter is floating on a cloud in the middle of a rainstorm but none of the rain is hitting him, just cascading over him like he’s protected by some kind of invisible dome.

Peter is in the middle of a field with MJ and he’s handing her a pale flower and she’s shaking her head at him but she’s blushing, anyway. He can feel the wind against his cheeks and he watches it blow her hair, in gentle wisps that brush against her neck, back and forth again. 

Peter is in an arcade with Ned, one that he knows doesn’t really exist because it’s like a maze, and it’s arranged from the first video games to all the virtual reality that’s available now, and they’re running around with Cokes in their hands and Happy and Rhodey and all the Avengers are there and they keep saying _don’t run, don’t run_ but they run anyway, and they beat them all in every game. Every single one.

Peter is somewhere snowy with May, and May’s wearing that orange coat she always would look at in the window of Macy’s, and she tosses a snowball at him and she misses and they both laugh, and then Peter’s in the snow, moving his arms back and forth. May says _Ben’s inside making cocoa, he’ll be out here in a minute_ and it doesn’t feel like something that shouldn’t be said. It just feels right and real, like he’ll be here any minute.

Peter is in the workshop with Tony, and Tony is saying the red car they’re working on is _his_ car, _Peter’s_ car, and Peter is under the hood and looking at all of it and the engine is amorphous and gelatinous and it looks like a fish bowl, sparkling and like something out of a James Cameron movie, and Peter looks over at Tony and he’s like _this can’t be my car, I can’t even drive_ and Tony slides underneath the car and he’s like _I’m gonna teach you, but May’s gonna sit in the back, because she’s got a lead foot—_

Peter is waking up.

It’s not the usual kind of waking up he’s used to, the kind he finds on a lazy weekend or a Tuesday morning. He feels like he’s pulling himself out of a sand pit, out of a deep hole, but there’s no pain and no anger, just—pressure. Pushback. 

His eyes flutter open, and the sounds start to flood in. 

Papers rustling. Beeping. The blinds swaying with the air conditioning. He feels like his hearing is better than it was, in the end—the end, the right before, and for a second there in the hallway he was worried he was dying, but then it didn’t feel like dying, it just felt like sleep. But all his senses were shot, and had been in and out and screwed up for days, but now everything is leveling out. Going back to normal. Like he’s floating on top of water.

“Peter,” Ned says. “MJ, look.”

“Stop, I’ve been looking at him.”

“No, no, he’s—”

“ _Whisper_.”

“His eyes are literally open.”

Peter looks to the side and sees them both sitting there. They’re not right next to the bed—they’re sitting at a table that it looks like they dragged in here, and they’ve got a pile of papers between them, two graphing calculators and, for some reason, a bunch of broken pencils. 

Peter blinks at them, his eyes still heavy, and he finds himself smiling.

They both look at him like he’s absolutely fake, like he’s a total hallucination, and Peter just stares back, smiling wider. 

“May,” MJ says, mimicking the look on Peter’s face, and she looks off behind him. Peter follows her gaze and sees that May is just on the other side of the door, rushing up with surprise in her eyes. 

“There’s my baby boy,” May says, picking up the pace as she hurries to his side, and Peter scoffs a little bit, reaching up and running his hands over his face. He’s still drifting on the brink of sleeping and waking, but he feels better than he has in a long time.

He tries to put the memories together, but he really, really doesn’t want to. He can hear the chairs moving aside as MJ and Ned get up to sit with him, and May is by his side in an instant, cupping his cheek. 

“How are you, honey?” May asks, brushing his hair back. 

Peter just grunts a little bit, because his mind is starting to work again. “How long did I sleep?” he asks.

“Fifty-seven hours,” Ned’s voice crashes in. “And like—how much was it—”

“And forty two minutes,” MJ says. 

Peter finishes off rubbing his eyes and lets his arm drop back down. He looks back and forth at the three of them, and lets out a yawn that feels like it’s warping his whole face. “Is everything okay?” he asks, heart beating a little faster. “Uh, I—it’s hard to like, process what—I feel like a jellyfish or something. I don’t know.” He huffs at himself. “I don’t know what I’m saying.” He yawns again. 

“We’ve just been waiting on you for a little over two days,” May says, running her hand through his hair again. 

“You snore a lot,” Ned says, and his eyes cut over at MJ, who rolls hers. “But it was like, a nice sound. Because of all the, uh, sleeping problems. Before.”

“Where’s Tony?” Peter asks, the question rattling cavernous in his throat. He was feeling gentle, floating for a moment there, but he honestly can’t put anything together from before, and he needs to see Tony too. He knows Electro and Shocker were involved, somehow. He knows Tony was—there. He was in horrific pain and his head was shattered glass, but even in the middle of all that debris, he knows Tony was there.

“Oh shit,” May says, wincing. She thumbs at the corner of Peter’s eye, and quickly gets off the bed, disappearing the way she came. 

Peter blows out a breath.

“He’s fine,” MJ says. “Last I knew he was next door making sure he had enough of the antidote stored away just in case this. Happened again. And he’s been trying to trace the drug and how those weirdos got it.”

“Weirdos,” Peter says, flexing his fingers. What weirdos? Happened again? No way. No _way_. It’s weird, that they know how it happened and he doesn’t. Did they tell him already?

Both MJ and Ned shake their heads. 

“They’re still here,” Ned says. “Tony thinks he’s committing a crime. Keeping them here.”

“He doesn’t care,” MJ says, shaking her head. 

“Well, not with what they did to you,” Ned says, sucking in a breath. 

Peter has no idea what's happening. 

“There he is,” Tony’s voice says. Peter turns again and sees him and May standing there, and they’re leaning towards each other in that way they do when he’s put them through hell, and he hates that that’s something he recognizes because he’s done it so many times. Tony points at May, then at Ned and MJ. “This was not immediate. I was two steps away, we were supposed to tell me _immediately—”_

“We’re finishing his homework,” Ned says, throwing his arms up. 

“You’re what?” Peter asks, eyes bugging out at them. 

“You’ve missed like a week of school,” Ned says. “And you’re gonna miss more.”

Peter sighs, rubbing his hand over his face again. 

“Listen, that’s all fine,” Tony says. “May and I spoke to the principal, I donated some money for the new equipment they needed, whatever the hell it was—”

Peter scoffs. “God.”

“Kids,” May says. “Can you go grab him lunch? And _not_ from the bodega. It’s closed right now, anyway.”

Peter looks up as Tony sits on the bed beside him, and he looks like he’s gearing up to talk to him. 

“Why would we go there?” Ned says, as the two of them get back up. “We’re not stupid.”

“Don’t get sassy, Ned, I’ll talk to your mother,” May says.

“It’s not their fault, anyway,” MJ says. 

“And we’re gonna help them get back on their feet,” Tony says, giving her a meaningful look.

“What's wrong with the bodega?” Peter asks, feeling really lost. He tries to remember. Jellyfish. No brains. Cracks and cracks and water rising up to his neck.

MJ shakes her head at him, reaching out and squeezing his hand in a private little moment none of the rest of them see. “Lots to uh, learn,” she says. 

Tony tosses them his wallet, and MJ catches it. “Bring Happy with you, maybe pick an Avenger, everyone’s still—gathered. You pick, Peter’s—you got a lot of likes, buddy, yeah? Any preferences?”

His stomach does feel like an empty pit, now that he thinks about it, but he figures that makes sense, considering he’s been asleep for more than two days, and he wasn’t exactly having three square meals in the days before. He thinks. He doesn’t even know.

“Uh,” he says. 

“Tacos?” MJ asks, raising her eyebrows.

“Perfect,” Peter says, smiling at her. He knows she’s thinking about that taco place he took her to when—he started thinking of her as more than a friend. They both remember. He can still feel the butterflies in his stomach, and he feels dumb and blushy laying here remembering like this.

_Chill out, idiot._

He yawns again as they both head out, and May walks around and sits where they were sitting. Her and Tony are both shuffling through a range of expressions, gazing at him and looking concerned and looking hesitant and looking completely and utterly full of love. Peter just lets them, allows them to settle, because he knows if someone was hurt, if something was genuinely going on, the mood would be a lot different.

He’s pretty sure he’s still the only one hurt here.

And then Tony starts talking, and May is like his little backup, and they regale Peter with the tale of some things he only half remembers, like the three times he “escaped” from the tower and wreaked havoc on himself, all the shit he did and the way he acted, confronting two super villains when he was at five percent capacity himself. Then they tell him about things he didn’t expect at all.

“And they took over the bodega?” Peter asks, raising his eyebrows. “Like they. Took it over. And tied up Mr. Saldari and his family in the closet?”

“Yeah,” Tony croaks, looking at May.

Peter huffs, his blood boiling. Mr. Saldari’s son is _little_. He must have been so scared.

“They’re okay now?” Peter asks. “Like, they’re fine?”

“Yeah, I put them up in a hotel for a while, all expenses paid,” Tony says. “We’re gonna help them out.”

Peter nods, thankful for that. “And you literally jumped over the counter?” he asks May, trying to imagine it and completely failing. “Like you. You literally attacked him.”

“Yes I did,” May says, holding her head high. 

Peter can’t help but smile a little bit thinking about that. Geez.

“I wish I had been there,” Tony says. “Happy says it was something. The angle on the security tape isn’t that great, I’m pissed, but you can kinda see it. Perfect form. We’ve got a gymnast over here and we never even knew.”

Peter scoffs and looks at May again. “How did you know he was—”

“I just knew,” she says, and she’s completely serious.

“These guys were shifty as hell,” Tony says, with a sigh. “Well. They—are. They still are.”

Peter reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose. He feels a lot better, sure, but he’s still weirdly frail, which continues to make everything out of the ordinary and whacked out. There’s a lot of information coming at him and he’s trying to store it all, but his brain is still recovering from literally melting and then being on bed rest for more than two days. 

Focus. Focus.

“Okay, so. May didn’t kill them, even though she wanted to,” he says.

“And Sam,” Tony says. “Sam, he, uh—”

“He was pissed, too,” May says. “Don’t let him ever say he doesn’t care about you. He wasn’t pulling his punches. He was flying around that place and he barely—it was something.” She clears her throat.

That makes Peter blush a little bit more, and he lets out a breathy laugh. “Okay. So you guys didn’t kill them, you worked with the cops and brought them here for now—you synthesized an antidote from the drug they had? They didn’t have one?”

“Nope,” Tony says. “Worked round the clock.” He squeezes Peter’s shoulder at that, gently.

“And they know who I am,” Peter says, mouth a little dry. “They know who I am and that’s why this was—so easy for them.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, hand still on Peter’s shoulder. “That’s the whole deal.”

“They haven’t said why,” May says, anger lacing her voice as she looks at Tony again. “They can’t shut the hell up about anything else except the things we genuinely need to know. Nothing about the drug. Nothing about you.”

“And that’s why I hung onto them,” Tony says. “Cops aren’t thrilled, we gotta hand ‘em over soon, but we still don’t know how the hell they know your identity and that doesn’t sit right with me. I can track the drug down without their dumb asses, but them knowing who you are makes me wonder who else does and how the hell they found out.”

Peter blinks at him. “So…”

“So I figured I’d let you have a crack at ‘em,” Tony says. “May and I already discussed it, and we thought they might be influenced if it was you in the room asking the questions. They already know who you are, so we don’t have to hide you from them. Denying it didn’t work, it’s—it’s past that.”

Peter’s brain is doing weird flips. Tony never lets him interrogate anybody, despite his very first suit having an actual, very terrible interrogation mode in it. But he’s got this weird look on his face and so does May, and they’re both wearing horrible expressions of pity, but with the state he’s in, Peter both gets it and doesn’t care. And he’s also a little bit confused as to why Tony would want him to get at these guys, when in most circumstances he’d rather lock Peter up in a tower than let him anywhere near things that could hurt him. He’s legitimately done exactly that before.

“Influenced?” Peter asks, gaping at him.

“Listen, I gotta figure out how they know your identity, if anybody else knows, the works, c’mon. I figured, seeing you like you are, what they fucking did to you, might cut into their cold dead hearts and make them admit some shit that they’re keeping from me and everybody else. I’ll go in there with you, obviously.”

Peter outright laughs at him. “You think? That they’re gonna care what I look like?”

“Baby,” May says, “I know you underestimate how sweet and adorable you are—”

Peter scoffs, now, rolling his eyes until it hurts a little bit. “You guys _overestimate it—_ ”

“Even Morgan says you’re cuter than her,” Tony says. “She goes around announcing this. And she says it’s especially true while you’re sleeping.”

Peter’s blushing now, shaking his head, and he reaches up to rub at his eyes again. “Listen, that’s—she’s wrong, but—you guys are _severely_ overestimating whatever’s, uh, going on here.” He gestures to his own face with weak fingers. “These guys. You said they wanted to kill me. That’s what you said, word for word. They were up front about that. If they wanted me dead they’re not gonna care if I come shuffling in there with bags under my eyes.”

Tony narrows his eyes at him. So does May.

~

So within the next half hour, Peter does exactly that. He shuffles in there, in his pajamas, and figures he’ll go with Tony’s plan and see what happens. There isn’t much else they can do at this point—supposedly Tony and all of the Avengers are tracing their movements trying to find out where and when these assholes realized who he was, but they haven’t come up with anything yet. And Peter being exposed has both Tony and May on edge.

It always makes him feel good. How much they love him.

Tony opens the door to the room where these guys are at. They’re both on the ground, in either corner, and they’ve got empty food containers between them, and two thin cots that look like they’ve been dragged in. Peter’s feeling a little bit weird about them being kept here, but he figures these are better circumstances than they’re gonna get in the regular system. And then he reminds himself that they literally tried to and wanted to kill him. 

But. Still. 

Tony closes the door behind him, and they both go a little wide-eyed when they see Peter standing there. Peter still feels woozy and unsure on his feet, and the lack of sleep versus the sudden influx of sleep is creating a strange entropy that his body is sinking into. He doesn’t know if he wants to be awake, if more sleep right now feels like too much or not enough, but knowing the option is there makes him feel better than he has in a while. 

He still sways in Tony’s general direction once they’re standing still in the room, and Tony steps closer to him so they’re shoulder to shoulder. 

“Oh, Jesus Christ,” the long-haired guy says. “He looks twelve years old.”

“You know what he looks like, and you didn’t say that shit when he came into the bodega and yet—”

“And was you not encouraging me? Was you not? Because I remember you right there hollering to keep going and do it when he wasn’t looking—”

“We were legit right in the middle of the thing—”

“Guys,” Peter says, shaking his head. Their voices are hurting his ears. “Listen, uh—this is already. It’s already done, okay? Like, it’s over, you got caught, you tortured me for—however long—an actual high schooler—”

“Kid, okay,” the long-haired one says, getting to his feet. “Listen. Listen. You know you’re a pain in the ass when you’re in the spandex, okay? Some of us have to do this shit to survive—”

“You don’t,” Peter says. “You know we could help you.”

“Who?” the other guy says, and he’s getting up now too, and Peter sees that he’s significantly shorter than his partner. 

Peter tries to remember fighting with them, especially on more than one occasion that would lead them to wanting to kill him. Is he really that annoying? He guesses that’s good, in a way.

“You mean Tony Stark?” the short one continues. He points at Tony. “This guy?”

Tony huffs. “We’ve got plenty of programs, prick—”

The taller guy starts talking again. “You’re always out here webbing us to buildings and leaving us there for hours and letting us get arrested and then we get out and you’re there again and it’s goddamn exhausting, okay? We thought we’d just go full villain and get rid of you, maybe that would kick Iron Man to the curb too from ever trying to come out of his cage because he’s too damn sad to lose the littlest Avenger—”

“We did think twice about it,” the shorter one says, with a sigh, palming the back of his own neck. “When we—found out you were. Twelve years old.”

Peter sighs and purposefully doesn’t correct them. Because he knows he’s getting somewhere.

“But then we held fast—”

A wave of dizziness hits Peter that doesn’t seem like normal dizziness, and Tony reaches out and grabs his arm as he sways. The two guys stop talking abruptly. 

“It’s normal,” Tony says, supporting him around the waist. “Bruce and Helen said once you woke up you’d feel the effects of the antidote counteracting the drug for up to a week. That’s why we already called the school again and let them know you’re getting over a deathly illness. That’s why the other two were doing your homework for you.”

Peter laughs a little bit, leaning into him and closing his eyes tight. He doesn’t know if Tony is saying all that just to tell him, or putting it all out there to really drive home to these two assholes that he’s a kid. He nods, blowing out a breath and waiting for the wave to pass, and he hears the two of them whispering back and forth to each other. 

He opens his eyes a second later. “Listen,” he says, his voice wavering, and they’re both looking at him in clear horror, so maybe he is influencing them with how unbelievably shitty he looks and sounds right now. “It’s a national security risk or something, that you know my identity. There are like, laws and stuff, and like—you know, uh, amendments in there especially about me and other costumed heroes who are—who’ve had their identities hidden because of certain reasons, and like, the fact that you know is a problem, and if you tell us why and how you know, we can like, help you out. And you won’t be in trouble with that whole—aspect of all this.”

They both laugh like he’s an idiot, and Peter can feel Tony holding onto him a little tighter in the midst of his rage about it.

“You two over here acting like Spidey’s identity is some state secret all mysterious and shit,” the shorter one says. He clicks his tongue and meets Peter’s eyes. “I saw you changing in the alleyway behind my place almost a year ago, right after everybody blipped back or whatever the hell. It was like two pm, I could see you from my kitchen window, get the fuck outta here with all this.”

There’s a pause. The room is only filled with their laughter, and Peter’s growing embarrassment. 

“Wait a second,” Tony says, deadly serious. “You watched a young boy get changed?”

Both men are suddenly wearing matching expressions of horror, and they take steps back and away, holding their hands out defensively like they think Tony is gonna start swinging. 

Then it’s a chorus.

“Hey, whoa, whoa, whoa, hey, whoa, hey, whoa, whoa, hey, hey, whoa, hey—” almost in time with each other, almost as if it was practiced, over and over again, like they’re broken and stuck on repeat. 

“Where’d you get the drug?” Tony asks, all business now that he knows he has them, and they’re both still panicking and shaking their heads. 

“We’ll tell you anything, man, just don’t be pinning that kinda shit on us—”

“We made a mistake, we went too far, but it never was any of that—”

“Start talking,” Tony says, raising his eyebrows. “Let’s hear it.”

~

In the end, after about thirty minutes of panicked talking and too many hand gestures, it turns out they got the drug through a long grapevine that originated with some underground group called the Syndicate. Tony starts his research on that right away with a few stern orders to Friday, right alongside the cops coming to pick the guys up. 

Peter doesn’t know how he feels. Everything is still a bit jumbled, but _stupid_ is definitely in there. Predominantly.

“See?” Tony says, one hand on Peter’s shoulder, still, as they head down the hallway. “I knew you’d get something out of ‘em. I knew it. They fell apart looking at you.”

“You’re the one,” Peter laughs, taking careful steps. “You got straight to the, uh, kicker there—”

“Stop changing in alleyways,” Tony says, a little harshly. “Look what the hell happens.”

“Yeah, I—usually I’m careful,” Peter says, smiling stupidly. 

Tony grunts a little bit in what sounds like annoyance, and then he sighs, shaking his head. “I know this was hell on earth for you, Pete,” he says. “And you deal with enough shit, honestly. Don’t let anybody hurt you like this if you can avoid it, alright?”

Peter nods as they get to the elevator, and it opens as soon as Tony presses the button. They walk inside, and Peter immediately slumps against the back wall. “You’re right,” he says, tiredness still burrowing in his bones, but in a different way now, than before. “Yeah, that was, uh—”

“You thought you were gonna die,” Tony says, staring at him as they head back up to the med bay. His voice breaks a little bit, and the emotion is clear in his eyes. “You told me as much. I don’t even know if you remember that shit.”

Peter winces. They’ve been on a long journey together—Tony used to try to hide his emotion, his worry and fear and growing fondness and appreciation, but now he’s up front about it, about how much he loves Peter and how much he wants to protect him. And May is always over the top, always honest about how much she adores him. Peter loves it, but it almost makes him feel worse when something does happen. He hates putting them through this stuff. He doesn’t often get to the point of withering away, and he can tell by the way they’re acting that it wasn’t good, that it was disturbing and something they’re not gonna get over any time soon.

“I don’t,” Peter says, wincing again as Tony looks at him. “It’s all, uh—weird, like—fish tank, the only thing I keep thinking is fish tank. For those memories, it’s like I’m looking at them through twenty different lenses and like different people’s eyes and it’s weird and I’m just—I’m just sorry.”

Tony’s expression breaks a little bit and he shakes his head as the elevator dings. The doors open and Tony takes Peter’s arm again, and Peter’s happy for the support. 

“Just take care of you,” Tony says, looking down at him. “We’re gonna figure out these lunatics, maybe I’ll make you little Spidey changing locations around the city—”

Peter snorts, looking down at their feet.

“—we’ll see what the hell is going on with this drug, the Syndicate, but me and you, we’re gonna make a new suit, give you some serious upgrades, okay?”

“Yes,” Peter says, grinning at him. “Always love a new suit.”

May starts down the hallway when she sees them coming, reaching them in a couple quick strides and supporting Peter on his other side. 

“We doing okay?” she asks. “Making plans?”

“Always are,” Tony says.

“Did we find out what’s going on with the two degenerates?” May asks, brows furrowed.

Tony lets Peter handle that one as they shuffle down the hallway, both of them moving at Peter’s pace. 

“Uh, yeah, we got it out of them,” Peter says, with a little sigh. She raises her eyebrows at him, because she could read his tone even if he wasn’t in front of her, and he smiles stupidly, not eager to explain it. 

“Something we’re gonna handle,” Tony says, and Peter just prays he didn’t let anybody else in on his secret in _this_ particular, very ridiculous manner. 

Peter nods, and he yawns as they hold the med bay door open for him. He feels like he’s aged twenty years since all this shit started, and it’s hard to believe he’s finally on the other side of it, when during the thick of it, it felt like it was never gonna end. 

He’s _finally_ getting better. 

They walk him over to the bed and help him sit down. He blinks a couple times, yawning again, and the feeling of sleep calling to him, a call he can actually _answer_ , is something he never knew he’d actually be grateful for. 

“You wanna nap?” May asks, brushing his hair back. “Ned just texted me, they’re down there with Happy and Sam and Natasha and it’s become a big thing, getting everybody’s food, Steve’s gotta come down just to help them carry it, so it’s gonna be a bit before, uh—they get back here.”

Peter nods again. Tony reaches out and squeezes his shoulder, and May runs her fingers through his hair again before they both start setting up the bed and helping him back under the covers. Part of him just wants to go back to his room here, get settled there. Part of him wants to ask about the fumigation at the apartment because that feels like a thousand years ago, and what’s going on at school and with the world and with the neighborhood he’s supposed to be protecting.

But his mind is saying _sleep_. And for a second he feels like a little kid again, with the way they’re treating him and fawning over him, and it isn’t in the embarrassing way or the kind of way he wants to stop. He feels like a little kid because despite everything, he feels genuinely _safe_ , in the way that only May and Tony can make him feel. He’s a Big Damn Hero, as Tony says all the time, but they’re the ones that protect Spider-Man. They’re the ones that make sure Spider-Man can make it out there again when things get bad. 

He lays back, feeling like he’s about to pass out as soon as his head hits the pillow. But his heart jolts, a little reminder. 

“You guys are gonna stay, right?” he asks, without embarrassment, that safe feeling draping over him like a warm blanket.

“Of course we are, baby,” May says, and Peter can hear her pulling a chair closer to the bed.

His worries start to swirl away, at least for now.

“We’re gonna be right here, Webs,” Tony says, and Peter feels him ruffle his hair. 

Peter smiles a bit to himself, elation spreading through him because of them, because of everyone he loves that would do anything for him even if he doesn’t want them to. Elation, because of _sleep sleep sleep._


End file.
